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

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191–200 of 420 posts

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

#191
This tallies with my experience in London. In fact, at Google, where after questioning their salary scaling vs competition, we were told that financial companies where NOT included in calculations. "WTF" or words to that effect were our general response.

Apparently this was eventually fixed, but not before about 80% of my ex-colleagues (I left for the Bay Area) ended up in... financial companies. Go figure. If you want the talent - put up the cash.

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

#192
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am from Europe but have friends in Ukraine among other places. In Ukraine, programmers are paid very well compared to the national average. So well paid that the 20-something programmers gets rockstar status with girls, and rockstar habits with vodka and drugs. This isn't very good for Ukraine startups.

> 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".

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

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public transport in London is anything but cheap. It is simply the most expensive urban public transport system I know of in terms of cost of monthly passes (or travelcards). Currently a monthly travelcard in zones 1-2 is £116.80 ($177.30). In comparison, a similar monthly pass in New York costs $112, $74 in San Francisco, $167 in Tokyo, $84.50 in Paris, $99.95 in Berlin, $100 in Chicago, $67.96 in Melbourne and so o…

£116 a month for unlimited travel around the city really pales into insignificance against even the average IT salary. In many towns and cities outside of London you would need a car to get to work which would cost much more, even without the London uplift in salary.

That's for zones 1-2. If you live in those zones, you probably pay quite a lot for rent. If you live further out, monthly travel cards cost more.

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

#194
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.

That almost makes German/Dutch wages seem good... (average wage for a just-graduated developer is around 35000 euros in both countries).

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

#195
post #134

This surprises me given how god-awful expensive London is. I remember it being one of those cities I've visited where I was like "how do people live here? what do all these people do?" Or maybe, like New York, you actually can live there fairly reasonably if you really know the place and know how to do it. As a visitor maybe I was paying tourist prices.

I have to agree. I've seen positions advertised via LinkedIn for 20k (GBP, but still!) and I'm not sure how you'd make that work in any big city, let alone London...

I worked in central london for RBI in part of Reed Elsevier and 2 out of 3 of my younger colleagues had access to family property in London which is how they managed to live in London.

Ironically I had a 70 mile commute and I got into work before the ones who lived in London 90% of the time :-)

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

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public transport in London is anything but cheap. It is simply the most expensive urban public transport system I know of in terms of cost of monthly passes (or travelcards). Currently a monthly travelcard in zones 1-2 is £116.80 ($177.30). In comparison, a similar monthly pass in New York costs $112, $74 in San Francisco, $167 in Tokyo, $84.50 in Paris, $99.95 in Berlin, $100 in Chicago, $67.96 in Melbourne and so o…

£116 a month for unlimited travel around the city really pales into insignificance against even the average IT salary. In many towns and cities outside of London you would need a car to get to work which would cost much more, even without the London uplift in salary.

It's not unlimited - just zones 1-2 and the tube shuts down around 12 making it a pain to come back home after a night out.

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

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mind sharing whereabouts in London you're staying? (Zone x, or slightly outside London...?) I was there for some years, and my rent was always around 8k a year. I find trying to live in an expensive city while on a low salary admirable.

Currently way out in the boondocks (zone 8). I'm looking to move into Zone 2/3 East London (Shoreditch/Bethnal Green area) to be closer to work. There are quite a few flat shares available for £500-600 pcm, which is my budget. That leaves me with £400/month to live off, which is good enough I suppose.

It's good that you don't mind being poor, 'cause that's what you're gonna be. I hope that start-up is worth it.

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

#200

We really need unions. These polls only help so much. Unfortunately also, there are both retard programmers, and actual programmers. I worked with a retard programmer, he thought that learning Django was a feat of strength...sigh..when I told him about OOP he almost shit his pants.

Unions ain't gonna happen. Not accepting low salaries could be a start.

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