241–250 of 420 posts
2008-2011: 60k ( including bonus ) in finance.
2011-2012: 2013: 68k in educational software used by millions of kids.
As a lot of people mention here, only finance pays well in the UK. If you don't mind working in that you can earn quite a lot. The other route is contracting, but that works if you have a skill that is in demand.
I am very happy with my current job though I make roughly half what I could potentially get if I went back to finance.
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Buses in London are a lot cheaper, it's £1.40 a trip, but the trips can be much longer than the relative speediness of the tube.
The bus is £2.40 now ...
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> I am from Europe but have friends in Ukraine.. Ukraine is in Europe.
Geographically yes, but politically and culturally the line gets a little blurry. I think parent meant to say "I am from the European Union".
Politically and culturally, it's in Europe. Greek Orthodoxy and Greek-derived scripts are something you find in Europe since the Middle Ages.
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£40k is not badly paid. It's significantly less than SV sure, but it's a lot more than the average UK salary.
It is when compared to other professions a GP (family doctor) earns on average well over £120k very few devs with say 10 years experience earn any where near that.
They also have to go through a five or six year medical school and five years of post-graduate training along with profesional exams (MRCGP exams). They're also bit of an anomaly compared to other doctors in the UK - consultant salaries are between 75k and 100k according to the official pay bands [2]. The only way that most doctors can make serious money is by having a private practice along with the risks and costs that come with it (for point of reference, my other half is an obs and gynae surgeon and in that field the private insurance is £150k a year).
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/9300823/Most-doctors-are-n... [2] http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/explore-by-career/doctors/pay-f...
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Tell me about it. I moved overseas to Australia from London a few years ago. Same job, same company, 60% pay rise. Now I'm back in the UK the permanent salaries on offer seem like an insult. I have to go contracting to match it.
But isn't Australia 60% more expensive to live in than London? I know salaries are sky-high, but I'd heard there were living costs to match...
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It's the legacy of the old class system rearing its ugly head. No matter how well educated, and from what prestigious colleges, (software) engineering is blue-collar work and will never be as well paid as the "graduate management fast-track" type with a sociology degree from a "red brick". Finance isn't highly paid for software work, it's fairly paid, by world standards, only because they contrary to popular belief,…
This applies to the US as well, but probably not as severely since software engineers aren't as underpaid in the US. Finance pays a fair market wage, which seems high by comparison to all the unfair players out there, but isn't actually that unreasonable. Startups pay a theoretically fair wage (if you accept valuations at face-value and exclude liquidation preferences). It's when you see the equity/cap table (2% for…
If, stipulating the dollar value of the whole comp package, a comp package appears fair, it is still fair no matter what that company pays anyone else. Wages are "fair" or "unfair" based on prevailing rates and supply/demand.
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UK degrees are classified into four classes: 1st, upper and lower 2nd, and 3rd. A first corresponds to about an average of 70%, 2.1 60%, etc.
So then is a 2.1 considered impressive?
All the above is, however, a massive generalisation.
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 make 25k in Brighton as a graduate. Most of the jobs I applied for were 18-22k.
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Wait, could you explain to us outsiders "the way the City works?" Are bonuses that important?
"The City" is a small area of London, in terms of business, the US equivalent of a financial district. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London
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What about job applications? Almost every job application requires a degree in CS?
If you have some experience you can point to, say contributions to open source projects, your own personal website (that isn't just a generic blog site) or maybe some volunteering for a non-profit or something like that, you can get around it. Well, I guess it depends geographically where you are as well as what sort of position you're applying for. Maybe also consider getting your foot in the door via QA?