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Comment by reedf1 | Hacker News Reader

This has caused a bit of a stir because the UK hasn't quite understood the relative weakness of wage growth for the last 10 years. The culturally understood milestones of "high pay" 30/50k have also not increased with inflation.

I get paid well for the UK - but I could triple or even quadruple my salary in the US/Australia. Combined with relatively high taxes (my marginal tax rate is 60%) - it isn't a great value proposition for many professionals, and despite the luxuries (healthcare, gun control) - almost everyone I know is eyeing the exit.

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Reason I left the UK for [redacted] was lack of wage growth. My wife is earning more than double what she was in the UK (tech sector). Taxes are very similar to the UK whereas overall CoL is lower in [redacted] (for us anyway, it varies on location, expected lifestyle, etc) so we have been able to save a lot more than we were able to in the UK.

Also quality of life in [redacted] is so so much better than it was in the UK. Comparing the last 5 years here vs our 5 last years in the UK and it is shocking how different and better our life is.

Sure [redacted] has its problems (just look at the protests right now) but I wouldn't leave unless it was for a really big chunk of change. [redacted] is freakin' awesome.

Oh also the healthcare is fucking incredible. I've had a few issues recently and every time I've needed to see my doctor it is same day and when referred to see a specialist it is always within a week. I had an MRI last week and a follow up yesterday to check some other things. Saw the consultant 15 minutes after the scan. Got the all clear. No waiting around thinking the worst. Absolutely amazing service and wanna know how much it cost me? €5 for parking last week and €3.70 for parking this week.

>> Also quality of life in France is so so much better than it was in the UK. Comparing the last 5 years here vs our 5 last years in the UK and it is shocking how different and better our life is.

Do you mind expanding on this? Particularly the less obvious things that you didn’t notice until you’d spent some time living there.

Not op but among others and not taking about paris, but I'd suggest

* Food options/freshness * Culture affordable * Pace of life generally calmer (but I know only UK cities not countryside life so YMMV) * Working hours lower * More human public services * Quality of housing - UK housing stock is abysmal especially if you are renting * Maternity/general employee protections

There are also downsides, like probably lower tech take-up and flexibility with some big corps being quite hierarchical and the school system somewhat old fashioned (on the other hand not as segregated and struggling as UK system)

Pretty spot on!

Sure but I don't know how good a job I will do putting it into words :)

We lived in London ([redacted]) and just outside ([redacted]) before we moved. We moved to the outskirts of [redacted] (we're a 10 minute drive from the nearest metro station). Takes 20 minutes to drive into the centre (Bellecour). About 10 minutes to drive to Tete D'or park just to give you some idea of distances.

Life in [redacted] is just so much more relaxed and happy. It is the little things like when I take my son to school here all the parents stop and chat and laugh and talk about what they did that weekend. In the UK it always felt like everyone was in a rush and/or bad mood. Rushing off to some other activity or moaning how they're running late because they were caught up at work.

Everyone here has a very hard cut point with work. I don't think I've actually heard someone complain about being late because of work. Traffic yes but never work. Everyone takes a solid 2 hour lunch break where we sit out in the sun (the weather is a plus obviously). Chat. Read. Play Pétanque.

The same is true after work. For example just yesterday the weather is warm so after I got back from having my MRI I bumped into my neighbour on his way home from work. He asked how I was doing so I gave him the update all is good and he was like that's great come play with us! And we spent the next hour chatting about MRIs with the kids, explaining how they work and I showed them the MRI of my brain I had on my laptop from last week haha :D

I know that is nothing unique to being in [redacted] and it could just as well happen in the UK but my point here is it never happened in the UK. Whereas that is just my normal evening. Neighbours chat and socialise and we pop round each others for goûter (a small snack) randomly.

I am sure I could have the same anywhere including the UK but given I lived in a similar kind of place (outskirts of a big city) it is just interesting to me how different the people and lifestyle are.

When I visit family back in the UK it feels odd to me. A lot of negativity. A lot of misery. I went last August and chatting with my parents neighbours (whom I have been friends with for a decade) were just so so negative. Moaning constantly, grumpy. I even said to my mother at the time "wtf is up with Zoe?" and she said "oh she's just had enough of all the crap". To be fair this was when Liz Truss just tanked the economy in record time and was then replaced with Sunak.

I realise [redacted] is not all roses and butterflies obviously. They have real problems too and perhaps I just lucked out with my place in [redacted] but my wife is happy and my son is happy (and bilingual which is a huge win and something I am super happy about). We live in a place 2.5x as our place in [redacted] for €300 month less. Have excellent healthcare, great weather, wonderful food, a beautiful park to relax in just 10 minutes away (Tete D'or).

Life is pretty damn good and that is before all the financial benefits we had moving here which are another story.

Edit: forgive any glaring typos. I wrote this very quickly as I am heading out of the door, usually I would proof read something this long as I won't be able to edit it later! If something seems very wrong I will try to correct it with a later reply :)

Fascinating answer. Thank you for going into so much detail. Your description of the general mood in the UK and the general attitude of people (including myself) was uncomfortably accurate.

Obviously I don't want to shit on my home country or countrymen but honestly I was pretty shocked. I hadn't visited much since we moved here in 2018 because of covid so August 2022 was our first "proper" visit since 2018.

Sure I met lots of happy people too but what stood out to me was how many people were unhappy. Even the happy people I hung around with soon (within an hour or so) turned into grumps and then the flood gates opened once one person got bitching about "the state of the UK" they all started.

I lived in the UK since birth so 30+ years by the time I left. I don't ever remember people being so negative. Utility bills, shitty schools, awful local services, everything costing more and being shittier quality. It almost felt like everyone was in a sort of mild state of countrywide depression. Not quite sure how to put it but perhaps some kind of negative feedback loop of misery is just compounding in the general populations psyche? That might sound a bit over the top but I don't really know how else to describe it as an "inside outsider" that I am.

The move to [redacted] has obviously been great for us. We moved in 2018 as I've mentioned, long story show once the vote to leave the EU won we decided to leave while we could. It took us two years of planning to make it happen and in a huge strike of luck my wife was made redundant (due to Brexit!) just a few weeks before she was going to hand in her notice having been contacted about a job here in [redacted]. So we left with a nice big cash lump sum, plus a fantastic signing bonus for my wife and a very generous relocation lump sum. In just a few weeks we went from very little savings to over £200k cash that we used to pay of all debts (including mortgage) and left the UK with zero debt and a nice chunk of cash most of which is now invested with some accessible for emergencies.

Sadly a few "friends" from the UK who were quite pro Brexit saw us as "fools" for leaving and when we met up they didn't try to hide the fact they thought we were "traitors" (literally what they called us at one point) as we "profited from Brexit but don't agree with it and fucked off". They basically feel it is people like me and my family that are the 'reason' Brexit is a failure?! Their arguments make little to no sense obviously but it was quite sad to hear someone I used to enjoy hanging out with call me an asshole for "making loads of money while the country went to shit". Obviously nothing to do with Covid, Boris, a decade of Tory rule, all the vote Leave lies, etc. Trying to have a discussion with them was like trying to explain multithreading programming to a piece of wood but oh well I tried. I suspect his negative attitude towards me is more to due with his own issues and he found an easy target with me having moved to a country he hates. Certainly felt like he had a lot of build up anger and he let it all out when I popped round to say hi!

So yeah lots of great things but also some emotionally difficult things come with moving country although I feel mine are more specific to the whole Brexit situation that wouldn't be an issue usually.

I moved from the UK to New Zealand and I've subsequently lived in the US and Denmark and now NZ again. I feel like your story encapsulates my feelings about the UK, or at least England. Compared to a lot of other places there's a misery to England. Of course I had some good times growing up there, but I don't miss it. When I visit it's like you smile at someone on the street and say good morning and they scowl at you.

In the US every time I walked into town I'd get a nice chat with a stranger, people were very open to talking. British people regard this with suspicion and it's really common to hear them say it's all fake after a visit. I carry that insular 'stoic' cynicism from growing up there and I dislike it within myself. I'm so glad I moved. Also the money.

Agreed. I lived in London and moved back to Dublin. Even with the high costs in Ireland and taxes, tech salaries are now moving way ahead of London (which is not a cheap city).

As a French person:

What you said is true, but the job market is fucked over here as well, its just the tech sectors going nuts. People with degrees in anything other than IT end up as servers, while people with those degrees get called weekly by recruiters. Same as anywhere else really, I got a 25% raise by hopping jobs for a year.

> and despite the luxuries (healthcare, gun control)

Slightly off topic but it's almost comical that `gun control` is considered a luxury.

Yep, everything you said is spot on.

I'm on N times the UK national median wage in London and still have anxiety about being able to afford kids, pay my mortgage, and retire at a half decent age. I see American firms offering 50-100% more pay for the same or less demanding roles.

Meanwhile almost everyone I know has the same opportunities available and is not eyeing the exit, in fact actively choosing to be paid less to stay here in the UK rather than deal with the standard of living in places like the US. My company operates in the UK and the US and I could transfer. Having visited and spent weeks at a time there, I actively choose not to despite the fact I would likely be eligible for it, and see a significant salary bump. I would live in a bigger house, drive a nicer car, but that's not an increase in a standard of living, that's an increase in a perception of my standards.

> almost everyone I know is eyeing the exit.

"almost everyone I know is eyeing the exit".. sorry, but are everyone looking to move to US/Australia? Because to Europe, the salaries are much lower than on UK, and frankly, US (specially because of healthcare, gun control, and street violence) is becoming less and less attractive, despite the amount of salary. Actually US is looking like South America: You try to earn as much as you can, not because you want, but to be able to live a safer life.

Sounds like you haven't been around the US much. There are cheap places and safe places to live. Stay away from the bigger liberal cities if street violence is a concern.

If the US looks like South America you've fallen into a media trap. You are being sold something untrue but packaged perfectly so everyone gets paid. Where in America would you get pick pocked like south america? Disney World? The mean streets of Akron Ohio? Nonsense..

Downtown in any major US city is a pretty scary place.

I’m in downtown Boston right now, just after being in downtown London. London is WAY scarier, and I was in the Mayfair neighborhood!

Violence is not a concern for the overwhelming majority of Americans in their daily lives.

EDIT: not that ANYONE should have to worry about violence in their daily lives; one just saying the US isn’t what you see in the movies or on 24x7 news.

Boston: 700.000 people

London: 9.000.000 people

That is, London is the size of New York. Just the fact that you are comparing Boston with London kind of proves my point.

I've never been to the US, but I've lived in London for nearly 6 years now.

I don't think I've ever felt threatened in London, and I've been drunk in iffy neighborhoods at 3am _a lot_. What made it feel threatening to you?

The drunk iffy characters in my neighborhood at 3am

In South America you don't get pickpocket'ed, you get mugged. With a gun, or knife.

Still, the USA does feel eerily similar to my native country (Brazil), I've lived in Brazil, the USA and Sweden, it's pretty clear how Brazil got modeled after the American way of life. You do have to work, a lot, otherwise you'll be replaced (just like in the USA); your status do matter, bigger house, bigger car, etc. (just like in the USA); you do need to earn a decent/higher wage if you want to live a comfortable and safe life (just like in the USA).

So yes, life in the USA is much closer to South America than to Europe.

You are generalizing, and in some cases, comparing apples with oranges. Is NY safer than Florianopolis or is LA nicer than Piriápolis, Uruguay? I doubt. But that's not the point, but the point of wall up, gear up, move up from the city, private schools for safety, and etc.

Is NYC safer than Florianópolis? Yup, considering there were 400-ish murders in NYC in 2022 with some 8 million people in the city proper, there were 44 in Florianópolis in 2021 with a population of 400k, double the rate of NYC per capita.

you are wrong, but still not the point.

Show me where I'm wrong. Saying "you're wrong" does not foster anything, it's pure noise...

The US is not one place. From the snowy Alaska fishing towns to Hawaiian huts to Maine forest lodges to Florida condos to Desert Ranches to NYC apartments you will find Europe if you are looking.

In California/NY they will tax you like a European but in Florida they won't tax your income at all

Looks like you are missing the point. Akron Ohio, well guess what, there as well pretty calm cities in South America too. But that's not the point. The point is, people trying to get rich, to stay alive (buy private security, private school, private health care, better walls, etc)

The kidnapping of tourists is a South American industry, the walls try to keep that out. No one buys private security.

> Because to Europe, the salaries are much lower than on UK,

After emigrating to central Europe I have to disagree. The salary in the UK is relative to the location so London for example is stupidly expensive to live in, so instead you commute an hour or so and still pay fairly high rent.

High salaries are in the major cities, but they carry extremely high cost of living, without necessarily high standard.

The salaries are actually closer than you might think once you look around of course, and the cost of living is almost always significantly less. So from my own experience overall I'm significantly in the green.

> Actually US is looking like South America: You try to earn as much as you can, not because you want, but to be able to live a safer life.

South America isn't all as bad as you hear on the news. You seem to have these sweeping ideas. Things usually aren't that black and white though.

> South America isn't all as bad as you hear on the news.

It might not be but as someone who's natively from Brazil I can say: it's pretty fucking rough, even more when I compare to my life in Europe/Sweden.

Whenever I visit I do need to turn on my alertness to surroundings up to 11, I do need to close the car windows when I stop on a red light in a city, I do need to care about two guys riding a motorcycle and coming to the general vicinity of myself or the vehicle I'm in.

Lived there for some 25 years of my life, got mugged with a gun 5 times, got mugged with a knife twice.

It doesn't happen everyday but violent is so common that you are on a constant state of anxiety and alertness, it's pretty stressful to live your day-to-day like that.

I also lived in the USA for a while and while you don't get the same anxiety as in South America I still felt much more stressed in the USA than I've ever been anywhere in Europe.

Is this everywhere in Brazil or just certain cities? From the outside it looks like for example, Sao Paolo, looks ways safer than Rio de Janeiro but I've never visited so I don't know.

Pretty much any large-ish city (500k+) will suffer from some variation of it, a little better here, a little worse there.

I'm originally from São Paulo's metro area, lived in the city most of my adult life in Brazil as well, and I wouldn't say it's "way safer". It does feel safer in a way, in some neighbourhoods but in the end it's just a variation of the ever-present dangers of Brazil. Rio de Janeiro is much more intertwined with hills and favelas in between nicer areas of the city, requires you to know how to behave/where to go.

I grew up in a rougher area (not a favela though), I'm not from a wealthy background and in a sense that helped with some street-smartness to live there and know what to avoid.

This is good to know, I was planning on visit South America at some point in the next ten years, although I was mainly planning on visiting some of the Spanish speaking countries because I've been learning Spanish. Do you think that Brazil is generally improving over time in terms of safety or are things mostly the same as they were ten or twenty years ago? From the outside, whenever I see a documentary on Brazil it looks like it is improving quite rapidly but the gang violence looks like it is difficult to get under control?

> South America isn't all as bad as you hear on the news. You seem to have these sweeping ideas. Things usually aren't that black and white though.

I'm German, but i was born there. Spent 20 years there and visit constantly (and love) different countries there like Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Chile. I know my Turf pretty well.

So you're on between £100,000 and £125,140. There's a very small (and stupid) band in our income tax system where people are on 60% marginal.

That's pretty high though. In Australia, the top tax bracket is $180k+ (£100k or so) at 45%, which I always thought was absurdly high. Earning 40c on the dollar (or 40p on the pound, I suppose) must surely set a ceiling.

It's a bit of a mess in our tax system that causes this.

The highest official tax bracket is 45%[0], which comes into effect once you earn over £150,000.

The "higher" rate bracket is from ~£50,000 to £150,000, HOWEVER:

Once you reach £100,000, your tax-free personal allowance is reduced by £1 for every £2 you earn, so that bottom section of your earnings enter into the 20% bracket when they were 0% previously, so effectively you're marginally taxed 60% (40% + 20%) on your earnings between £100,000 and £125,140.

Between £125,140 and £150,000 you're back at 40%! Anything over £150,000 is taxed at 45%.

Also, if you're (un)fortunate enough to be a parent with young children and you benefit from tax-free child care[1] (to which pretty much everyone is entitled), the second you earn a penny over £100,000 (after pension deductions, but before tax etc) you lose the ~£2000 per child annual benefit.

Effectively this means that if any one parent in a household gets a pay rise from £100,000 to £100,000.01 (ignoring the pensions contributions for a moment), they are actually ~£2000 per child worse off. These people are therefore better off earning £100,000 than £100,000 + (£2000*N) where N is the number of children at tax-free childcare age, until their children age out of the benefit.

In case that's not enough; the moment you earned that extra 1p over £100,000, you're now obligated to start filing tax returns, even if you're a PAYE employee never having done so before [2].

[0] https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates [1] https://www.gov.uk/tax-free-childcare [2] https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates/income-over-100000

Thank you for this comment.

I moved into the 100k bracket 3 years ago, and have just hit 125k this Jan. I am the sole earner in our house, wife can't work and have a 12 year old boy.

And I've been trying (and failing) to work out why it seems like more than 40% of my earnings are taken as tax.

And why I need to do tax returns as I've always been PAYE with no other income sources.

The bad news for you, is that in 4 days[0], the 45% threshold will lower to the ~£125k mark, so your next pay rise will be particularly hit hard.

[0] https://archive.vn/TJyWe

Ha.

I joined the workforce the year after final salary pensions were shutdown. My slightly older peers are all on track for early retirement. I will never be able to retire.

I considered contracting just as IR35 was introduced. My slightly older peers who - literally - got rich and paid no taxes enjoy much better lifestyle than me.

So this makes sense, that as I claw my way to higher income, it's taken away by the system.

All the while having record house prices, plummeted pension performance and now cost of living/inflation.

What a horrible game.

almost everyone I know is eyeing the exit

Anecdotal only. I don't know many eyeing the exit. Not everybody is so money focused.

You don't have to be money focused. Maybe you just want an appointment with your dentist without waiting for over 2 months for it.

There's plenty wrong with the UK but the pursuit of materialism and short-term I'm-alright-Jack priorities is responsible for a lot of it.

I understand what you were saying in your original comment having seen this now. Completely agree the level of selfish short term-ism is a joke.

Thanks, yes, and I agree the UK has been on a downward path for a considerable time; I don't blame anybody for trying to find somewhere they will be happier - and warmer :) - it's the materialistic worship at the centre of a lot of our problems (reflected in the values of empty salary-chasing) that bothers me.

If the services are around you are deteriorating, then by definition you need more money to access the type of services that used to exist at the level you are used to.

So I'm not sure empty salary-chasing is as empty as you make it seem. Sometimes salary chasing is just trying to keep up with inflation in order to make sure your family maintains a decent standard of living.

Unless I completely misunderstood your post, in which case disregard everything I said.

I got a letter saying I was due an appointment, emailed them to book me in at the start of this month, my appointment is in the middle of July over four months later. And I am one of the luckier ones in that I actually have a dentist. A lot of people in the country can't even access one. This country is an absolute joke and I am also getting out.

Maybe I'm spoilt, but I've been able to get a next-day dentist appointment basically forever. Usually private, because I get insurance through work though.

I am. My children are the only things keeping me here. It's not about the money it's about quality of life. Healthcare is rapidly becoming non-existent, schools operate off the back of teachers, roads are falling apart, the level of corruption is embarrassing, housing market is ridiculous, childcare is expensive and/or non-existent etc. In general any service provided by the state is deteriorating.

It's not about the money it's about quality of life

My response was to a post about money.

Wrt quality of life, I can definitely see that as an argument for leaving the UK (though obviously less useful than staying to try and change it), but you only have to look at international quality of life indexes to see that social happiness is pretty much inversely related to materialist excess within the developed nations.

The UK is notorious for having a persistently large proportion of the population insisting they're about to emigrate any moment now. It's a long-standing and weird phenomenon.

My bet (being British) is that Brits have lots of culturally-close New World countries to pick from. The US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, all culturally close and English-speaking. Someone from Germany or France have far fewer, if any options, especially if you count out bordering countries.

That, and the weather.

But this is a recurring theme to the point where I think it's not so much that the opportunity is there (non-English speaking countries are also high on the list of places British people want to emigrate) but a cultural idea where there seems to be that mild level of discontent that in the UK is expressed by talking about (but rarely following through) on moving to Australia in particular as a kind of hyperbole. It's a bit of a favourite of mine to explore, as it's such an weird peculiarity of British culture.

As a result, UK media as well as political groups all know that if they want a reliable way of writing a "the UK is going to hell" article, all they need to do is do a survey on people wanting to leave.

Because if you can't get more than about half of the population to say they're at least pondering leaving the UK, you're doing something very wrong and/or people are unusually happy.

Some examples:

2023: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11768729/Half-want-...

2022: https://hrnews.co.uk/two-thirds-of-british-workers-dream-of-...

2022: https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/people-...

I think this one was what first made me aware of this phenomenon:

2012: https://www.aol.co.uk/2012/04/15/almost-half-of-brits-want-t...

I'd argue this is more pronounced in non-professional fields - looking at levels.fyi, London pays developers more than any Canadian or Australian city, despite the latter two having a higher CoL. London is only beat by the US and Switzerland.

exactly. Quite possible to double my salary moving from a job in Berlin to UK, all of that with home office possibility.

Costs of lots of stuff is quite a bit higher, from food to rent.

I wouldn't be surprised if the mean was dragged upwards by FAANG headquarters and a few financial service firms with a median that is lagging behind.

My experience in talking to FAANG recruiters in the UK is that they're not paying all that well here relative to other (non-financial services firms) for developers. I turned down even starting the interview process with Facebook because the money on offer wasn't worth my time.

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