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Ask HN: Average Salary for PHP Dev in London?

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Re: Ask HN: Average Salary for PHP Dev in London?

#21

Post by jnardiello »

PHP Dev here with similar experience as yours. I used to work/live in London and stayed there for a bit less than ~2yrs. My salary was 50k in a well respected big US-based corp. Mine was the highest salary in the team, other members were between 35 and 45k.

Honestly, be well-aware that the value of your salary is going to remarkably decrease if you relocate to London. Mainly because of rent. I used to pay 1.5k to live in Bethnal green (which is ~20/25 min by feet from the silicon roundabout - very likely where you'll end up working). You can save some money commuting but you'll end up paying for transports, so, expect end of the month to spend about the same. If you are alone and will be happy with a single room, it will be 600-800 in a decent shared flat.

I'm 100% confident saying that those 5/10k of salary increase are not enough to justify you to move. 40k in manchester are a lot more than 50k in London.

In terms of salary increase, as a lead PHP dev you can expect to go around 65-70k but that will require time.

Completely different story if you decide to start contracting as in London you can easily ask for 400/500GBP a day.

I hope it helps :)

Re: Ask HN: Average Salary for PHP Dev in London?

#22

Post by jaymzcampbell »

I'm doing Python but PHP friends I have in London at a senior level hit around £50-60k+. To be honest with the commute times, train prices, rent (£1400 a month for a 2bed in zone 3) - I am increasingly looking to get out of here and head towards Manchester and would take a £25k cut for it and probably be better off overall!

Hope it works out, I'd bump your 45k target up to around 50 as a baseline - you might get a few k more or few k less but £50k seems average enough to me (outside of contracting - contract rates are a lot higher, friends regularly getting £400/pd contracts for "just" front end).

Re: Ask HN: Average Salary for PHP Dev in London?

#23

Post by Sarkie »

40k in Manchester is good, people are moving from London to Manchester as the rents is so high.

BUT

I love London, I am so glad to live here, it's so much fun, Manchester got boring quite quickly for me and the dev community is great.

I'd say 55k for London is average amongst my dev friends.

Re: Ask HN: Average Salary for PHP Dev in London?

#24

Post by payamb »

jnardiello wrote: post #21

PHP Dev here with similar experience as yours. I used to work/live in London and stayed there for a bit less than ~2yrs. My salary was 50k in a well respected big US-based corp. Mine was the highest salary in the team, other members were between 35 and 45k. Honestly, be well-aware that the value of your salary is going to remarkably decrease if you relocate to London. Mainly because of rent. I used to pay 1.5k to liv…

Thanks for sharing your experience, Well my main issue is life got boring for me in Manchester, I moved to UK 3 years ago and honestly its only the vibe of London that makes me to relocate there.

With 40k life is so easy in Manchester but then I'm not sure i'm happy to live here still.

Re: Ask HN: Average Salary for PHP Dev in London?

#25

Post by throw923498 »

UK-AL wrote: post #15
throw923498 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are getting paid £45k in London, this would not be something you have to worry about. Sure you'd have less disposable income than Manchester, but the idea that you couldn't afford to go out is ludicrous.

Depends what part of london you live i guess.

No, not really. I seriously doubt there is any part of London where you couldn't rent acceptable accommodation and have plenty of money left over on £45k.

In zones 1-2 (or 3) that'll probably have to be a houseshare - but you'd still easily get a nice private room for that. The takehome of £45k is £2,797.27 /month after tax[0]. Even if you spend 50% of that on rent (inadvisable but common in London), that's still £1400 a month to play with. Which is still more than the total takehome of someone earning the London living wage[1].

I mean, you'll have to have a commute if you want a private, 1 bed flat or larger and you're working in Zone 1, but that's not exactly much of a hardship. My point is that with even the most basic level of sane budgeting, £45k is easily enough to live/work pretty much anywhere in London.

[0] http://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php [1] http://www.livingwage.org.uk/what-living-wage

Re: Ask HN: Average Salary for PHP Dev in London?

#26

Post by payamb »

Sarkie wrote: post #23

40k in Manchester is good, people are moving from London to Manchester as the rents is so high. BUT I love London, I am so glad to live here, it's so much fun, Manchester got boring quite quickly for me and the dev community is great. I'd say 55k for London is average amongst my dev friends.

Yeah my main reason to move to London is because London is live city, I'm bored with Manchester now too.

I would aim for 50k then ..

Re: Ask HN: Average Salary for PHP Dev in London?

#27

Post by jacknews »

payamb wrote: post #3
crjHome wrote: post #2

London is a really expensive place to live. I bet your rent would be double compared to Manchester, so even though your salary is less you will have probably have more money in the long run.

That's ture, But on the other side you get to enjoy the vibe of London i suppose. I'm already decided to move to London , But i don't know if the recruiter i'm working with is not good, Or the average PHP dev salary is low.

London is great when you're loaded, but doesn't have much a vibe when you're broke, in my experience.

Re: Ask HN: Average Salary for PHP Dev in London?

#30

Post by teekert »

swalsh wrote: post #28

These salaries are terrible, how is it possible to get away paying such low salaries in London? In the US (not even San Francisco) I'd expect nothing less than 125k USD (105GDP)

It's a different world. It is important to known if this is before or after taxes and healthcare is free (or rather: paid for by taxation) in the UK.
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