Only way to make comparable money in Europe is by contracting. For some reason full-time employees are massively underpaid compared to US and don't tell me about living cost comparison.
Life in London for example is just as expensive if not more than San Francisco/New York. We pay for our national health insurance too and probably comparable to what Americans pay for their private.
People can barely afford an average house/flat as a full-time senior software engineer in UK and are not paid too different than any other office based role.
And no it's not because there is more money in US for tech, because a lot of people in UK work for American companies and I guarantee you they get paid less than their US devs.
American companies outsource their tech to Europe for the sole purpose if being cheap especially to eastern EU countries.
> We pay for our national health insurance too and probably comparable to what Americans pay for their private.
To clarify something, in the UK there are two main deductions on personal income - income tax and National Insurance. National Insurance doesn't pay for healthcare, it pays for things like state pension and other support benefits - https://www.gov.uk/national-insurance/what-national-insuranc.... The National Health Service (NHS) is funded through taxes.
National Insurance is also de facto a payroll tax in the UK and a pretty steep one at that it will be over 15% come April if the NIC increases are implemented as is.
It also makes you wonder about NI itself. Have a look at what you're paying every month and how much you'll actually get for your state pension - it doesn't seem remotely worth it. And I get that it's a social service and it should cover the benefits for people who don't contribute - but it's a lot of money to pay for something you don't benefit from yourself.
> We pay for our national health insurance too and probably comparable to what Americans pay for their private.
That's not saying much since the NHS covers far more than what private insurance does in the US. Furthermore, in the US we have to deal with the absurdities of deductibles, co-insurance and "out of pocket" maxes (private insurance in the US does not kick in 100% until all of these are met). So on top of high monthly premiums, you still wind up with large bills and even larger if you go to a facility that is "out of network". Also dental/eye care are most often separate insurance policies with different companies. I'd take the NHS any day over the asinine system we have here in the US.
Depends who you ask, it's considered quite low in Finance (Goldman Sachs is paying +£100k total. comp for front-office graduates now), but generally, outside of finance & fintech the salaries are quite low.
Life in London for example is just as expensive if not more than San Francisco/New York. We pay for our national health insurance too and probably comparable to what Americans pay for their private.
People can barely afford an average house/flat as a full-time senior software engineer in UK and are not paid too different than any other office based role.
And no it's not because there is more money in US for tech, because a lot of people in UK work for American companies and I guarantee you they get paid less than their US devs.
American companies outsource their tech to Europe for the sole purpose if being cheap especially to eastern EU countries.