> According to the recruitment website Hired, the average tech salary in London is $78,000 a year, versus $142,000 in Silicon Valley.
And this is one of the reasons for the brain drain that the mention before. Silicon Valley firms pay significantly more than the competition, and they are still paying almost half of what they do in the US.
It isn't only about money, but it would be naive to deny it's impact on people's decision on where to live and work.
>> Silicon Valley firms pay significantly more than the competition,
I'd say another major factor here is that the UK market significantly undervalues talent, compared to the US, Australia and other markets I've heard of. It may be better than continental Europe, but it's pitiful compared to the money in other countries.
Which is why I'm a contractor now, salaries for permanent work in London are not comparable to work in the US, and outside of London they are just plain derisory.
> As an example, interns at Google in the US earn about $7000 a month, while in London they get about £2000. That's because of market rates in London are far lower than in the US. Ideally, tech companies in Silicon Valley would really love it if they could have the same employees as they do now for half the price.
Just speculating, but I imagine for Google the real estate cost of moving their headquarters to London would far outweigh the small amount they'd save on labor.
> According to the recruitment website Hired, the average tech salary in London is $78,000 a year, versus $142,000 in Silicon Valley.
Does anyone have a like-for-like comparison? What do the FAANGS pay for the same thing in one place or the other? Is Glassdoor reliable for these stats?
I don't think the comparison is so easy, because London has a huge financial tech market which SV probably doesn't. But those incomes might end up in the "finance jobs" column rather than "tech". HFT coders get paid a fair bit, but could reasonably claim to be either.
On the other hand London is more expensive than Silicon Valley and salaries are much lower. The correlation to cost of living is loose at best. In the case of Silicon Valley I'm convinced it's actually the tech money that raises the cost of living.
>If you count total comp FB London pays waaaay more than British tech companies and pretty much anything outside of high finance.
I am in agreement with you here. Even with the abysmal FB London compensation (compared to heavy majority of tech companies in SV/Seattle/Austin/NYC), it is still way higher than local equivalent tech companies. This just reinforces the point I was making in my previous comment.
>The salaries aren't that much lower from what you'll get in Silicon Valley.
They are much lower than in SV/Seattle/Austin/NYC, if you count total comp (which is what majority of people in tech actually count, because the base cash pay becomes less and less relevant the higher you get promoted). And that's not even mentioning taxes and such being much lower in the US(no state income tax in Seattle/Austin at all, for example, only federal).
P.S. on my last point, there is no need to bring up insurance costs that don't come included with lower taxes in the US, as majority of tech companies in the US provide amazing insurance coverage for pretty much no extra charge.
I'm an american who has been to London maybe twenty times. I have noticed the difference in pay rate. London has very similar pay rate to places like Austin or Boulder which are about 30% less in cost of living.
I would guess that Silicon Valley one would make about 25%-40% more than London for top paying CS jobs with a very similar cost of living
> I even doubt one can get $130k in London.SWEs in London are not competing with other SWEs. They are competing with bankers and similar.
It's certainly harder than in, say, SF, but by no means impossible. Google and Facebook between them have thousands of engineers in London and are growing fast. They're not paying as much as the US, but are by no means stingy. £100k ($130k) is not unrealistic.
If you want some anecdotal data, I transferred from the Bay Area to London and my base salary decreased about 25%. But then again, a nice one-bed apartment in London can easily be easily found for $2k...try finding that in SF.
> If any UKites have made it to this thread, is be curious to hear why so few people leave for countries with a stronger and higher paying tech sector?
First of all, working in tech in the UK you can make $130,000 which is 3-4x the median annual salary. Very few Brits would describe that is "extremely low".
That's enough money to have a few kids, a wife who doesn't work, and a pretty decent lifestyle.
Why move a 10-hour flight away from all my friends and family, just because I could earn enough to drive a Lamborghini instead of a Lotus Elise?
I'm not sure why the article focuses on hiring people from Silicon Valley... Mostly people hire externally to the UK to reduce wages but in CA wages are roughly double what they are in London, let alone the rest of the U.K.
The main argument of the article is 'If there was a shortage in STEM salaries would rise'.
Comparing the salary ranges in London and Silicon Valley on the two recent polls on HN seems like a pretty flagrant sign that the salary may not have risen recently but developers definitely commend a good bit more money in the US than in London. ( the mode for london seems to be between LBP 30k and 50k, which is $45k-$75k, whereas bay area salary mode is between $120k and $130k )
Disclosure: While having my salary multiplied by 3 was not the main reason for me to move from academia in france to industry in the US, it certainly was a plus.
If that's really the case then Silicon Valley salaries have gone through the floor recently. That would be considered an insulting salary for a developer in London, in GBP.
What are those 'extremely high salaries in tech' you speak of, outside of a select few Canary Wharf positions? UK salaries in tech are abysmal from what I see - and just last year I heard a UK 'entrepreneur' brag about how cheap engineers are in the UK at a software business conference. Also keeping in mind CoL - who wants to take a London job when it means 2 hour commutes one way in order to have some disposable income left?
It's really not a great point to use London, by far and wide the only and biggest exception the rest of the market in the UK, to compare salaries for tech workers. You can earn quite a lot more adjusted for conversion and taxes pretty much anywhere in the US if you compare to someone living outside London. And even then, London rents (never mind houses) are ridiculously expensive.
Surely this line of thinking leads to lower salaries? Silicon Valley salaries are purely a function of the local labour market, Facebook still pays Oxford graduates in (insanely expensive) London a fraction of what they would be earning in the US.
And this is one of the reasons for the brain drain that the mention before. Silicon Valley firms pay significantly more than the competition, and they are still paying almost half of what they do in the US.
It isn't only about money, but it would be naive to deny it's impact on people's decision on where to live and work.
reply