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Poll: Full-time software engineers in London, what's your annual salary?

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11–20 of 420 posts

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in London, what's your annual salary?

#11

"At least 200k" full-time , wow. For anyone who's on that type of salary, what role and industry is it? CTO-level?

The only SE roles I know if that sort of salary range is in financial services for a couple of the top guys in the company. No way is that anywhere near standard salary for 99.99% of employees.

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in London, what's your annual salary?

#13
The software industry here in London is really badly paid, for salaried jobs outside finance at least. I know plenty of developers who started at £20-25k as graduates from decent universities and whose salary has slowly risen to 40k over quite a few years. PhD graduates making £35-45k too.

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in London, what's your annual salary?

#14

"At least 200k" full-time , wow. For anyone who's on that type of salary, what role and industry is it? CTO-level?

London has a big financial sector, so a lot of the big pay packets probably come from there - hedge funds, banks, HFT etc.

See here:

http://jobs.efinancialcareers.co.uk/Information_Technology.h...

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in London, what's your annual salary?

#15

Salary: £85k + bupa + pension and a 25% of gross salary (£~21k) a year paid each quarter if objective are met (70% or above). Tech: Primarily Java with some C, C++ and more recently Go (although Go is only in our code playground, nothing even close to production yet) Location: West London Company: Small but well established (since 1996). There are 4 developers including myself. One software is one part of what we off…

You are making decent money compared to SF. According to the poll, not many are though. Does the UK not value intellectual workers?

The UK isn't the best place for software people in my opinion. I have been around for a little over 10 years in the field now and worked for big, medium and small companies. I think this is because people seem to gamble more in SF by investing in companies which we don't really have much of in the UK. You don't get the big angel investors or VCs sticking a million £ into a start up. I know of a few start ups that got some VC funding but most were small under £100k investments and normally by many people. Crowd funding seems to be picking up a bit here though.

I certainly feel valued as an intellectual everywhere I have worked but I may just be lucky?

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in London, what's your annual salary?

#16

Salary: £85k + bupa + pension and a 25% of gross salary (£~21k) a year paid each quarter if objective are met (70% or above). Tech: Primarily Java with some C, C++ and more recently Go (although Go is only in our code playground, nothing even close to production yet) Location: West London Company: Small but well established (since 1996). There are 4 developers including myself. One software is one part of what we off…

You are making decent money compared to SF. According to the poll, not many are though. Does the UK not value intellectual workers?

Disclaimer : I'm not from the UK, nor have I ever worked there

The UK as a whole has long had a reputation for having low wages relative to the US. Anecdotally, I recall coming across a mention here on HN where certain dev jobs were being classified as "clerical" and offered at around ~$20k - $25k USD equivalent.

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in London, what's your annual salary?

#17
As someone debating whether to do a Mathematics vs Computer Science vs Joint Honours, I'd really like to hear from graduates what worked out for them.

    - As a developer, how often are skills from CompSci degree applied on the job? 
    - What do you wish you knew about the job market as an undergrad?
    - How much part did the prestige of your university play in your current salary?

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in London, what's your annual salary?

#19
post #13

The software industry here in London is really badly paid, for salaried jobs outside finance at least. I know plenty of developers who started at £20-25k as graduates from decent universities and whose salary has slowly risen to 40k over quite a few years. PhD graduates making £35-45k too.

I'd add that for jobs in startups (a focus for the HN crowd) salaries are particularly low.

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in London, what's your annual salary?

#20
post #13

The software industry here in London is really badly paid, for salaried jobs outside finance at least. I know plenty of developers who started at £20-25k as graduates from decent universities and whose salary has slowly risen to 40k over quite a few years. PhD graduates making £35-45k too.

Yeah this is my experience as well. I was fortunate to start on quite a good salary and have managed to maintain that while changing jobs. London certainly isn't the place if you want to make a big career though. Even a start up here is so much harder than in America. People just don't want to invest much until you have a solid business.
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