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Comment by itsbits | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand as well..why are compensations so low in London compared to other places? I mean even if you consider cost of living..not good at all

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The exchange rate.

London was relatively competitive when the exchange rate was above $1.5 for a pound. Note that it was approaching $2 for most of the 2000s until the financial crisis.

You could make bank easily in London as a contractor (very low taxes), maybe more than in the Silicon Valley.

Then over the last decade the exchange rate plumetted and the cost of rent/home doubled, while salaries and daily rates didn't move. Why they didn't move? There's too much talent and not a lot of companies with big pockets.

Most of the FAANG and assimilated that drove up salaries in the valley have no presence in London.

Agree with this.

Back in ~2007 when the exchange rate was ~$2 London salaries seemed competitive. I remember travelling to the US and everything seemed cheap.

In a post-Brexit ~$1.3 exchange rate, travelling to NY was painful.

Other than Netflix (that I know of) all the other FAANGs have big offices in London. Between them and the financial sector, there’s a fair number of very well paid tech jobs in London.

Netflix is in London too and expanding

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-07/netflix-t...

It's current $1.37, which isn't too bad. Depending on how the next couple of years go, it may go either way. Sadly (for me), I think it's going to head towards $1 rather than $2.

My understanding is that London is extremely bi-modal. There’s £30k jobs and £300k jobs and not a lot in between. So you can get a good salary but it’s hard to make the enormous job to get into that band.

Something like this, but not quite this. The going rate for a good senior developer at a decent company is on the order of 80 - 90 k (maybe more). Where by "good" i mean "Pivotal Labs alumnus", and "senior" i mean 5+ years experience, and "decent company" i mean successful FTSE100 company or funded startup, since those are most of the data points i have.

That's base salary, and there will be pension contributions, benefits, maybe worthless options, etc, but not a stock package that doubles the total comp.

High finance and FAANGs with London offices pay much more - more base salary, and chunky stock or bonus packages. Not all of finance pays well - plenty of high-street banks pay their developers poorly (and it shows). I work in a successful trading firm and earn comparably to an L5 at Google, according to levels.fyi.

Day rates for contractors seem to vary a lot, but 400 - 600 a day, maybe? The contracting scene is still adapting to recent tax law changes, though.

This is assuming we're talking about programmers. Median salary across the whole of London is ~40k. Tons of people earning 20k working in a shop etc.

London day rates I've seen for contractors are more like 700 - 900/day on average at places that pay a bit better and 1000+ for specialists. And base salaries I've seen advertised for senior developers at funded startups (e.g. Wagestream, Truelayer) are more like 105k now (more for higher levelings - i.e. Principal/Staff).

Good news about the day rates! I wonder how much of this is about stack - most of my knowledge is of the generic Java development scene, and I'm extremely out of touch even with that now

On the permanent positions, that sounds like a seniority thing. The people I know aren't staff or principal. I know someone who's sort of head of engineering at a small but healthy startup, and I think he's on 120k or something.

To be clear I was saying 105k for senior, and more than that for staff/principal.

As to day rates I think it's rather about companies willing to pay a bit more to get better contractors rather than any specific stack.

Completely misread that, sorry! This is why i wasn't offered that kind of money.

I hope to see day rate contracting adapt to the new legislation and make a big return, though i'm not holding my breath.

As a data point, i'm London based, moved from £800 per day to £140k permanent position last year. "Lead Architect" role, whatever that means these days and ~18yrs experience in the industry. I'll be returning the contract work as soon as I see the market bouncing back.

7-900 is VERY high for dev contractors based on my view of the marketplace.

>>> Day rates for contractors seem to vary a lot, but 400 - 600 a day, maybe? The contracting scene is still adapting to recent tax law changes, though.

Contracting has taken a massive hit with COVID and with the change in tax rate, that both happened almost at the same time.

Contracting was definitely the way to make it in London. You could charge £500-1000 easily a decade ago with very little taxes. Depends on the skillset. I think that was made it on-par with what you could make in the Silicon Valley and NYC depending on the exchange rate (2016 Brexit really hurt).

Some commenters may rightfully point out that it's not as high as L6 compensation, but it's much easier to get and you don't have to spend $60k for a year of college or a day in a hospital (that's the number one of my US coworker quoted for his daughter).

L6 at FAANG, never went to college and numerous other engineers at my level and across the company haven’t either. Also never spent a penny on health care in the US. Fully covered with Kaiser and company plan I am in 30’s, so maybe due to few issues, but health coverage is good.

Also, worked in London and TC of £500k+ was possible for an L6 after 4 years of refreshers and performance multiplier. Knew a few peers on packages closer to $1MM. Definitely possible, but maybe this is a small select group. FAANG are generally growing in London though. Easier to find talent than in the US right now.

At most US companies, certainly one of any size, you'll pay something for healthcare in terms of contributions to your insurance plan and deductible/co-pays. But the amounts are capped. The $60K may have been the "list price" pre-insurance for a hospital stay.

And while the list price of private schools may get into the quoted range, 1.) Relatively few people pay the list price and 2.) There are (often good) state schools which, while not free, are a lot cheaper especially for in-state residents.

> maybe this is a small select group

Obviously anyone at FAANG is going to be at the absolute top of their field internationally so yeah select group.

The £ is trading at roughly the level where it was pre-Brexit.

First job was £21k in tech support and I lived in a studio appartment in central London (zone 1) with my partner who was an undergrad at the time. Still had as fun a time then as I do now on a fair bit more than that.

People will tell you that universal health care and other such programs make up for the low salary (same as the "rest of Europe" - quoting since it varies wildly in quality across Europe).

People will say that. But I'd point out that if you're working for a typical tech company--or, indeed, most companies employing professionals--you're probably covered by health insurance through your employer. You're often paying for some of it and you'll have some out of pocket up to a max, but the amounts involved are likely modest compared to salaries.

Yep exactly. it's important to remember that most of SWE are spared from the ugliness of the healthcare problems in the US yet enjoy higher salaries and lower taxes than most of Europe. So it's almost a net win in this regard.

Not having one's health insurance tied to one's job is still a Good Thing, though.

I agree, but in Germany for instance, if you don't have a job you'd have to pay everything yourself unlike when you're employed, you pay 50% and your employer pays the other 50.

Not as bad as having different insurance altogether based on your employer though, but similar.

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