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Ask HN: Relocating to London After Brexit

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Re: Ask HN: Relocating to London After Brexit

#31

Post by sharpneli »

patrickdet wrote: post #23
0xy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

London beats any European city by a substantial amount, even including cost of living. I don't see why that would change. Switzerland as you point out has similarly high wages. I can't see innovation, talent or companies moving to the EU at any stage. It's a regulatory horror show and has massive brain drain to places that actually pay developers reasonable wages. Developers in Sweden are paid the equivalent of 51k U…

> Developers in the EU get shafted big time. Free health insurance is not worth half, or even one-third the salary. It’s called solidarity

The money saved does not go into the healthcare. The healthcare is paid from taxes paid from salaries etc. So the bigger the salary the more funding for healthcare.

I’m not complaining about the situation. Supply and demand determines IT wages quite well. For some reason US based devs are simply more in demand.

Re: Ask HN: Relocating to London After Brexit

#32

Post by Hallucinaut »

mfDjB wrote: post #26
Nursie wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think undoing the GDPR would be doing "the right thing", personally. I'm hoping that's legislation we keep for the time being, until we can figure out how to do it better. But fundamentally it's pulling in the right direction. You're right that in a lot of the UK software folks are viewed as 'beneath' the management and business types though, and not valued in the same way as they are in other economies. Usel…

In regards to GDPR, I agree it's the right thing for consumers, but it puts compliance pressure on startups. So from the perspective of a startup, I could see its removal being a positive. (Note that is just from the perspective of a startup)

It shouldn't be acceptable for startups, nor anyone else, to play fast and loose with personal data, just as it isn't with financial data.

Unless your business model revolves around usage of personal data, in which case GDPR is a very useful set of minimum baseline requirements for handling the data, compliance is fairly trivial.

Re: Ask HN: Relocating to London After Brexit

#33

Post by jjgreen »

trebligdivad wrote: post #27

Why London as opposed to Cambridge or some of the other areas with a lot of tech?

Cambridge is quite a nice town, but is is a small town; 20 pubs, 6 Indian restaurants, 1 cinema [1], not really comparable.

[1] not been there for a while, those numbers may well have changed

Re: Ask HN: Relocating to London After Brexit

#34

Post by raverbashing »

rich_sasha wrote: post #22

I saw a list of European unicorns (on HN in fact I think) and probably about 2/3 were UK/London based. That’s right now. The other ones are scattered around, so this might be your best bet in this part of the world. As another comment says, you’ll mostly get political comments, so here goes: UK universities, while still very good, are dropping quite significantly in various league tables since Brexit. This is for a r…

I think you have the right idea there

> I saw a list of European unicorns (on HN in fact I think) and probably about 2/3 were UK/London based

While unicorns are an interesting measure (even though it favours the biggest startups - are 2x 500Mi startups "worse than" 1x 1Bi startup?), I always wonder how much of it is some form "language blindness". How much value is on startups or companies that don't get on HN or "don't speak English" much?

Re: Ask HN: Relocating to London After Brexit

#35

Post by orange_tee »

room271 wrote: post #9

We will find out is the only sensible answer, as the question is too complex really. But, one obvious impact will be labour supply. Fewer European area devs will come to the UK, which will make things less attractive for big tech companies.

I don't think you are right about labour supply. UK has always had the upper hand when it comes to immigration. Half the world wants to move there. They will have absolutely no problem attracting devs from all over the world.

Re: Ask HN: Relocating to London After Brexit

#36

Post by [deleted] »

raverbashing wrote: post #34
rich_sasha wrote: post #22

I saw a list of European unicorns (on HN in fact I think) and probably about 2/3 were UK/London based. That’s right now. The other ones are scattered around, so this might be your best bet in this part of the world. As another comment says, you’ll mostly get political comments, so here goes: UK universities, while still very good, are dropping quite significantly in various league tables since Brexit. This is for a r…

I think you have the right idea there > I saw a list of European unicorns (on HN in fact I think) and probably about 2/3 were UK/London based While unicorns are an interesting measure (even though it favours the biggest startups - are 2x 500Mi startups "worse than" 1x 1Bi startup?), I always wonder how much of it is some form "language blindness". How much value is on startups or companies that don't get on HN or "do…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Relocating to London After Brexit

#37

Post by morlockabove »

patrickdet wrote: post #23
0xy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

London beats any European city by a substantial amount, even including cost of living. I don't see why that would change. Switzerland as you point out has similarly high wages. I can't see innovation, talent or companies moving to the EU at any stage. It's a regulatory horror show and has massive brain drain to places that actually pay developers reasonable wages. Developers in Sweden are paid the equivalent of 51k U…

> Developers in the EU get shafted big time. Free health insurance is not worth half, or even one-third the salary. It’s called solidarity

After this year, I've had more than enough of 'solidarity'.

Re: Ask HN: Relocating to London After Brexit

#38

Post by bvcvbuiy »

marcinzm wrote: post #18
djaahk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always feel like salary comparisons are a little biased by a slightly US-centric definition of a comfortable lifestyle (e.g. including a car, parking, bigger house requirements, etc) as well as underestimating some built-in benefits of other countries like free healthcare. Are there good sources out there that would afford a holistic cost comparison of a typical London lifestyle (Tube, 1-bedroom in Zone 1-2, weeken…

>as underestimating some built-in benefits of other countries like free healthcare. If you're at FAANG (which the original post was talking about) then there's little advantage of free healthcare imho. You get top of the line company paid for healthcare. You can see a top specialist in a week with no referrals needed and someone almost as good same day.

That is a given for every resident in most European countries.

Edit: it seems I am wrong. I commented a bit too fast.

Re: Ask HN: Relocating to London After Brexit

#40

Post by orange_tee »

pasabagi wrote: post #30
djaahk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always feel like salary comparisons are a little biased by a slightly US-centric definition of a comfortable lifestyle (e.g. including a car, parking, bigger house requirements, etc) as well as underestimating some built-in benefits of other countries like free healthcare. Are there good sources out there that would afford a holistic cost comparison of a typical London lifestyle (Tube, 1-bedroom in Zone 1-2, weeken…

I get the impression US salaries usually come out way ahead for software people (in other fields, not so much). The only point where it starts to get questionable is when you consider stuff like, how much would you pay to live in a city that doesn't have needles all over the sidewalks, or, what is the value of living in a society that isn't brutally unfair and visibly dystopian? Personally, I put a pretty high value…

US is a nation of immigrants where you can basically fully integrate in a matter of months. In non-English speaking countries this is impossible. If you put a lot of weight on fraternity and equality you have to consider that if you move to France or Germany you will always be "that foreigner who moved here".

Just something more to consider. Although I do agree also with your post.

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