Generally, not good. Many SWEs in games want to leave for cheaper countries or countries with better pay (US). Our salaries are low, but we don’t have a good social safety net to show for it (i.e. our public healthcare is practically inaccessible due to wait times in hospitals, and public dental — forget about it). So it’s a raw deal.

I don’t think about how people on average salaries live. Or people with kids, or both. It is too depressing of a thought. One third of kids now live in poverty, more than one in five adults — a better stat thanks in part to professional DINK couples threading water. Poverty is below paycheck-to-paycheck.

There are no clear prospects for things improving. No meaningful political action. See BBC, Guardian, etc for what the government is concerned about instead. There’s no point turning this into a political discussion and beating the proverbial dead horse.

Upskilling and migrating into more well paid jobs is hard. If you didn’t have enough time to study outside of work before, now with the CPI rising and your real wage dropping, you have even less time.

Even if it sounds grim, people are finding individual solutions, like leaving.

The last two years in the games industry has seen a lot of attrition just from people becoming unable to sustain their lifestyles in the UK. And a lot of these people are exceptionally skilled 10+ years of exp professionals, and very driven, so they deserve at least an average lifestyle.

What is going on thanks to Brexit and all that is an injustice to them. And good on them for looking out for themselves first. Whenever a colleague leaves for a better life elsewhere, I am happy.