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They do contract reviews and they have some kind of deal on health benefits. They're also a local of the much larger Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union which has something like 150,000 members in it.
Yes there's a market for low-cost work, but don't sell yourself short as others in the comments are saying. Let's get that minimum rate a little higher ;)
Wow. I guess dev in the us is a lot more expensive. I will say that a mechanic at the tire shop that fixes my car charges $92 an hour for his time, and I feel some obligation to charge more than that, with my fancy high school diploma and noticeable absence of gang tattoos, felonies, etc.
>> mechanic at the tire shop that fixes my car charges $92 an hour for his time
It's part of the reason I moved here.
Switching to salary-paid positions for a moment (as they might be easier to compare to your own compensation), £28k (~US$44k) seems to be a going rate for a mid-level developer and £40k (~US$62.5k) for a senior developer in London right now. Ignore financial services-based engineering positions, although there are a lot less of those today.
Current equivalent in SF right now could be $75-$90k for a mid-level developer and $100-$150k for a senior developer (or more).
Keep in mind London is a more expensive city to live in than even SF, taxes are higher (yes even compared to CA+Fed), health insurance isn't included (ok, we have socialized medicine but my point is that's part of your comp here in US), sales tax in UK is 20%, and unlike the US you have to pay property tax (council tax) on the property you live in regardless of whether you rent or own it.
Living in the UK, especially London, is incredibly expensive and I sometimes wonder how I managed frankly :P
EDIT: Oh and the reason I think wages and rates are low is because software engineering isn't a primary industry in London and a great deal of developers end up working for marketing agencies etc where they are simply "code monkeys". The BBC is another big employer (my former employer) but they only pay non-commercial wages as they are a public-service and it (used to be) seen as prestigious to work there.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No reason to be patronizing or get personal, Matt. And I didn't mean to be disrespectful to those who earn even a third of that rate. My point is that the rate appears to be very much on the lower end of the scale. Which is a bit sad for professionals with over a decade of honing highly specific skills. However the same rate can mean different things, depending on the context. - Remote worker on Elance: dream rate. U…
I didn't mean it personally either, it's more that I felt you didn't add anything to the conversation and seemingly ridiculed other people's rates. My point was you're not talking about the UK, you're working for BIG CORP that hires out consultants in a scenario I outlined above, so why start declaring people's rate peanuts? For the record I'm actually a UK Freelancer and these rates are exactly what I see. For some…
(Tangent: I was offered a job once to come work at a developer of medical systems. They gave me a tour of the facility and they showed me the 'desk' I'd be working from. It was literally a back corner of an electronics lab workbench, with a chair that didn't even swivel, right next to a dead plant and with a floor covered with previously-mentioned cracked linoleum that must've been 40 years old. C'mon bro, you serious? The hiring manager looked at me as if I was some sort of prima donna for wanting to work in an environment where I wouldn't feel like a necessary evil type of employee, just above or at about the same level of the guy working the loading dock. I declined the offer (one for which I was a perfect match, profile- and experience-wise, and one that had been open for 9 months because they couldn't find anybody even remotely filfulling the requirements) and then the CEO called me at home asking me why I had declined it, how could that be, such a great offer? He even 'upped' the pay - a whole 1000 euros/year or something like that, completely ridiculous, still below what I was making at the company I already had a job at at the time (I had told them how much I made and they didn't believe me). I told him a variation of 'pay peanuts, get monkeys' and brushed him off - he seemed to be not accustomed to that, weirdly enough.
Anyway, last year I was at a hospital when my wife was pregnant, and I saw that they used the equipment developed at that exact lab. I have to say that I felt quite queasy knowing that important things were decided based on results from machines build by people who would accept jobs under the circumstances there.)
As a British native who began his career in the UK and later moved to San Francisco, I can tell you that the going rates for developers (can't really speak about designers) is a lot lower in the UK than in the US. It's part of the reason I moved here. Switching to salary-paid positions for a moment (as they might be easier to compare to your own compensation), £28k (~US$44k) seems to be a going rate for a mid-level d…
The first proper result for "graduate software engineer" is Red Gate, who obviously only recruit the top graduates, but still: http://www.red-gate.com/our-company/careers/current-opportun...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And you are a Software Developer and Technical Evangelist for IBM from Toronto, Canada . I don't see how you added anything to the conversation. Perhaps in your wisdom you could share what the difference is between a contractor and consultant and how to get these non 'peanut' jobs. For example my old company provided consultants at £900 a day, probably still peanuts in your book, but these were employees who took a s…
Quoting http://stackoverflow.com/a/746854/22088 : Contractor is a temporary resource brought in from outside of organisation. Contractors' job is done when they finish delivering products or services specified in their contract. Consultant is a specific kind of contractor. Their primary job is not just scaling up the existing team, but delivery of knowledge transfer. Consultants invest time into learning a specific t…
There's a 3rd term for this same position, "Freelancer", that you can use if you want to make significantly less than either of the above.
As a British native who began his career in the UK and later moved to San Francisco, I can tell you that the going rates for developers (can't really speak about designers) is a lot lower in the UK than in the US. It's part of the reason I moved here. Switching to salary-paid positions for a moment (as they might be easier to compare to your own compensation), £28k (~US$44k) seems to be a going rate for a mid-level d…
£28k is a low graduate salary in the UK. The first proper result for "graduate software engineer" is Red Gate, who obviously only recruit the top graduates, but still: http://www.red-gate.com/our-company/careers/current-opportun...
So basically, he threw away all the data from people quoting high hourly rates, and now we're seeing a bunch of discussion here that can be summed up as "Gee, that seems a bit low, doesn't it?"
"anything under £100 I removed as I felt this could not easily be distinguished between daily and hourly rate." So basically, he threw away all the data from people quoting high hourly rates, and now we're seeing a bunch of discussion here that can be summed up as "Gee, that seems a bit low, doesn't it?"
As a British native who began his career in the UK and later moved to San Francisco, I can tell you that the going rates for developers (can't really speak about designers) is a lot lower in the UK than in the US. It's part of the reason I moved here. Switching to salary-paid positions for a moment (as they might be easier to compare to your own compensation), £28k (~US$44k) seems to be a going rate for a mid-level d…
£28k is a low graduate salary in the UK. The first proper result for "graduate software engineer" is Red Gate, who obviously only recruit the top graduates, but still: http://www.red-gate.com/our-company/careers/current-opportun...
I also know people who 10 years after graduating are still not making £35k, although that's not specifically in the field of computer science.
It's rough back home right now :/