> As the tech workers land the big salaries, home prices are skyrocketing, and the locals are being squeezed out.
Joke is on them, I'm a new tech immigrant to Cambridge and I still can't buy a house here.
Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK
11–20 of 276 posts
Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why are UK tech salaries so low compared to the US?
I think there are lots of reasons, both sociological and economical, but my hunch is that demand for the most productive tech employees is lower since it's so easy to lean on American-produced innovations and services rather than build our own in the UK. Consider that Azure, AWS, Google Cloud Platform, etc. are all huge in the UK, yet most of the work on them is taking place in the US. Ditto for Oracle, Office 365, t…
The UK has a higher cost of living, with London pretty much equal to NY or SF and other high cost cities. The other equivalents are cheaper in the US.
Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why are UK tech salaries so low compared to the US?
Because when tech companies come to places in the us they become gentrified and everything becomes expensive. In most cases tech companies coming to an area has a devastating effect as people who had lived in an area forever are forced out due to the insane spike in cost of living.
When high paying companies come to London/Oxford/Cambridge/Bristol the effect is just the same, it's not a US only phenomenon.
Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK
#14> According to the recruitment website Hired, the average tech salary in London is $78,000 a year, versus $142,000 in Silicon Valley.
And this is one of the reasons for the brain drain that the mention before. Silicon Valley firms pay significantly more than the competition, and they are still paying almost half of what they do in the US.
It isn't only about money, but it would be naive to deny it's impact on people's decision on where to live and work.
Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK
#15The UK could pitch itself as a place rich US tech companies can buy top talent at low price. I have seen some (not many, to be honest) US tech companies open offices in the UK so they can pay half or less for staff, compared to what they'd pay at home. If Brexit goes as badly as it might, the pound could be even cheaper.
Why are UK tech salaries so low compared to the US?
Anecdotally, and when compared to America, it could be due to a combination of many factors including:
- More regulation around employee protection
- Excellent talent drawn from less wealthy EU states who may be willing to accept a slightly lower wage than locals
- Lots of STEM graduates from UK universities
- A different work life balance
- Tech skills are not seen as valuable as law/banking/medicine
- A more profit-first rather than growth-first startup mindset
Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there are lots of reasons, both sociological and economical, but my hunch is that demand for the most productive tech employees is lower since it's so easy to lean on American-produced innovations and services rather than build our own in the UK. Consider that Azure, AWS, Google Cloud Platform, etc. are all huge in the UK, yet most of the work on them is taking place in the US. Ditto for Oracle, Office 365, t…
The UK has a higher cost of living, with London pretty much equal to NY or SF and other high cost cities. The other equivalents are cheaper in the US.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ That's not my experience of both places, and I've not found any data that supports London being as expensive as SF including https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou... - I've found it much easier to live in London on a budget than SF where you'd throw your personal safety and comfort into jeopardy by cutting too many corners.
Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK
#17The UK could pitch itself as a place rich US tech companies can buy top talent at low price. I have seen some (not many, to be honest) US tech companies open offices in the UK so they can pay half or less for staff, compared to what they'd pay at home. If Brexit goes as badly as it might, the pound could be even cheaper.
Lot's of companies do that, but the UK is kind of a strange place to choose to do that. If you want cheap, go hire a team of 10,000 engineers in Penang (I'm looking at you Intel). If you want expensive, choose silicon valley. If you want 2nd tier, take a look at Canada. You can choose the UK, but why? Their time zone means you'll never be able to meet with them at the same time as your Malaysian and Californian offices. They're cheap - but no where near as cheap as the far east. And they've got a metric shit tonne of employment rights, which most US companies not only don't want the cost of, but also disagree with ideologically.
Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK
#18The UK could pitch itself as a place rich US tech companies can buy top talent at low price. I have seen some (not many, to be honest) US tech companies open offices in the UK so they can pay half or less for staff, compared to what they'd pay at home. If Brexit goes as badly as it might, the pound could be even cheaper.
Mainland Europe has even lower salaries in a similar timezone.
Switzerland is doing just fine.
Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK
#19> According to the recruitment website Hired, the average tech salary in London is $78,000 a year, versus $142,000 in Silicon Valley. And this is one of the reasons for the brain drain that the mention before. Silicon Valley firms pay significantly more than the competition, and they are still paying almost half of what they do in the US. It isn't only about money, but it would be naive to deny it's impact on people'…
In complete terms it's more like 3x that $78k figure.
The salary would be bad enough. The big US tech companies are nearly all publicly traded. So that $142,000 is really $250,000 or more in total compensation. The UK, and Europe more broadly, not only can't compete with the salaries, they can't compete with the ability to dish vast stock compensation thanks to the immense market caps that Google et al. have. If you're really great at something, Google can trivially give you millions of dollars in stock if it makes sense. What company in Britain can compete with that?
The skeptics will say something about healthcare in the US as a counter. The top 1/4 in the US have easy, fast access to some of the most elite medical care on the planet. And if you're making $142k in salary in the US, your healthcare is entirely paid for.
There are only two strong counters, one is that the quality of life can be very high in parts of wealthy Western Europe, and the other is cultural (preferring one culture over another).
Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
The UK has a higher cost of living, with London pretty much equal to NY or SF and other high cost cities. The other equivalents are cheaper in the US.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ That's not my experience of both places, and I've not found any data that supports London being as expensive as SF including https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou... - I've found it much easier to live in London on a budget than SF where you'd throw your personal safety and comfort into jeopardy by cutting too many corners.
In the US you also need to put aside much more every month.