Earlier quoted context omitted.
UK IT salaries are really low and it's easy to set up a company. If you make economy business-friendly it's probably same as Android app store without a fee.
>UK IT salaries are really low Maybe compared to the crazy US salaries you see here, but compared to continental Europe, CoL adjusted UK salaries are difficult to beat and also you have a lot more interesting opportunities there vs here where it's mostly small web-shops or big name consultancy sweatshops. Wanna see low (CoL adjusted) tech salaries? Try Spain/Italy/Austria/France where they shaft you with high taxes a…
In reality, most tech jobs are the small web-shops or big-name consultancy sweatshops (one particular example is Edinburgh, huge market for tech jobs, there are quite a few startups now but the tech industry ten years ago, the period when the OP occurred, it was mostly sweatshops...and still is to a large extent, large companies who open up an office but labour is cheap, and will head off to Eastern Europe if wages rise). Starting salaries under £20k are not unusual in the UK, and startups are still definitely the exception outside London. In particular, the market for grads in the UK is very difficult...it is very, very hard to get your first job because there are lots of scammy companies offering slavery wages, lots of consultancies looking to churn staff, and a relatively small number of decent companies that often aren't particularly good at hiring (or willing to train, or willing to take risks...the UK job market is flexible relative to Europe but not flexible enough that employers don't view hiring someone as a big risk...because it is).
To say this another way, the UK does have some startups where you can make decent money...but the core of the industry that employs most people is just like Europe (because the UK still isn't very well-developed outside London).