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fergie

Any idea what the top of the pay band is?

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Glassdoor says for a software engineer there it's between 50-57k GBP, which is about 65-75k USD

Not to bad for the UK

But pretty bad for Europe overall (?)

As I understand it its good compared to France and Germany - maybe Switzerland would get you more but Switzerland is expensive

It is less than a train driver gets for a 4 day week though :-(

I was thinking purchasing parity-adjusted, where Berlin seems a lot more affordable [0]. Switzerland (where I currently live) isn't such a clear-cut picture, as you say [1]. I earn more than what Numbeo suggests, and that is nowhere close to the top of the salary range.

[0] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou... [1] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

Just from my personal experience, having lived in both London and Berlin within the past 2 years, the affordability gap seems to me to be closing fast between Berlin and London.

If anyone is making a London vs Berlin decision in 2019, I would advise take a really detailed look at the cost of living numbers if it's an important factor in your decision.

To be honest there are many other important differences and tradeoffs between the two cities that make a like-for-like lifestyle comparison basically impossible, but just assuming for a second you could do so, the days of simply assuming Berlin will be significantly cheaper without having to think about the details too much I think are over.

I looked into this extensively after getting an offer to move from Berlin to London and renting somewhere like Wapping in London was still 3x the price of renting in Mitte in Berlin. It takes a lot of additional salary to make up a difference of 2000 euros a month post tax.

Yeah, that's fair - the big caveat with London is that you'll basically be renting in zone 2 outwards if optimising cost of living is in any way important to you. That's one of the tradeoffs I always forget when comparing Berlin and London.

Though to be fair, London being what it is, plenty of places in zone 2 still very much feel like bustling city living if that's your thing. Berlin, less so - once you're out of the central neighbourhoods it gets 'suburban' rather more quickly.

Berlin is an outlier it used to be this strange cold war limbo place until relatively recently - thought that is now changing

fwiw (more anecdata), Switzerland has Google's highest pay scale of any office around the world, including NYC & the Bay Area... and it's not even all that close (something like 10-15% difference).

Swiss trains are really expensive though, 20 min ride from Zurich to Zug is like $35 one way. thats a good racket they got going there I would expect train drivers to get a hefty cut of that

Is that not a respected trade there? Or perhaps unskilled labor in comparison to these jobs?

I think he's talking about the tube drivers [0]

[0] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/london-tube-drivers-earni...

I was thinking of Thames link 60k basic for 4 day week plus OT plus Final Salary Pension.

It seems closer to 18CHF, ~ 17USD, after a cursory search.

This is actually cheaper than buying 3.22 Big Macs would be, compared across both countries [0].

[0] https://www.bigmacindexconverter.com/

So the round trip is 35?

Must have got my tickets mixed up

Seems so, or you found a train faster than 26min.

Not too good for london

Are most of The Guardians offices in London?

It did start off as The Manchester Guardian after all.

Not sure they have anything left in Manchester now. They moved to London decades ago, and sold off the Evening News sometime in the 00s. I think MEN was the last significant presence. If anything remains I expect it's a minor operation.

Most non junior developers in the UK (edit: in London) are contractors which starts at about 250 gbp/day, but average is probably more like 600/day. Can easily be as high as 1200 though.

So a contractor with 5 or 6 years experience can easily make over 100k/annum if you knock off some time for holidays, pensions, gaps between contracts etc.

Do you have a source for "most" here? Most of the senior devs I know are full-time non-contractors (though that is quite possibly just a property of my friend group and location (Cambridge)).

That's not really true. Day rate for a decent SE contractor is about 400/500 (but ofc they don't get that, as mostly private contracting is rare).

But the big thing I disagree with is "most"... the perm industry in the UK is strong!

> but ofc they don't get that, as mostly private contracting is rare

Is it? I've been contracting in the UK (through my own limited company ofc) for the past two years, at the top end of your band, and had no impression that what I do is rare. I'm glad to see this thread actually, for my next gig I'll definitely push for more money.

Shure your really outside IR35 ?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ to the best of my ability

Directly with the company in question? or through a resourcing firm? my experience (On the other end of that transaction) is that the former is rarer because working through a specialist contract placement firm (e.g. Spring) has various attractions to a company (albeit higher cost).

Why do you say private contracting is rare in the UK? Every software company I've been to here is like 50% contractors.

Most companies will contract through a management firm than with the individual directly.

Not really in the UK - its mostly PLC or Umberella Companies for contractors.

The fake contractor aka a body shop where you are a normal employee of some third party is not that common.

£1200 per day? The max day rate for web development I have seen in London was £650/day but normally £550/day. You can also easily earn £90k as a perm in London.

Finance is about double that.

Depends almost 20 years ago in BT we paid that for a High end Oracle contractor.

That day rate might be for a big four consultant 20 years ago it was around £900

You would seriously struggle on that in central London.

It isn't a particularly high salary for an experienced developer here in London, but struggle is an exaggeration. The majority of people in the UK and even central London are paid less than this.

I doubt that’s true for professionals working in central London.

Where would you live on that much money? You’ll spend your life and most of your money commuting!

Live in Zone 3, spend maybe an hour and seven quid a day on the tube? London rents are outrageous, but not so outrageous you can't afford to live there on £50-57k.

You’re supposed to not spend more than three times your salary on your house, according to most lenders. So that’s £150k. Are there many houses that cheap in Zone 3?

No, that's why a vast proportion of people can't afford to buy.

No, you'd probably have to rent unless you can get a massive deposit from somewhere.

That 3x thing is laughable where I am in Auckland. I assume other places have it worse, unless their wages are much, much higher.

The limit is about 4.5x, and that’s on top of any deposit you have saved.

That's exactly what happens.

Pretty sure it is negotiable based on experience on your previous compensation. At least from my experience working in London, you can always negotiate.

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