About half of the equivalent in the US, often less. It’s exceedingly rare to make 100k here even in a senior position, although it does exist. Median is 40-50k (pounds, so times that by 1.2 for USD).
Holy crap. That’d be a pretty substantial cut for me, but I guess that said, is the COL a lot less?
Yes, depending on where you live rent might be similar (London isn’t much cheaper than NY or LA) but cost of living is otherwise less. Also, people tend to work much shorter hours (a limit of 37 for me, any extra is returned as PTO) and start with much more annual leave (25 days discretionary, for me, plus public holidays, plus we close over Christmas and new year’s). Furthermore there’s no health costs to pay etc. On the whole it balances out and I think the lifestyle here is better, but I do envy the extreme salaries of those in the US.
As someone in the US, 40 hours per week is the minimum. Recognition for “being a hard worker” has required 60+ hours at some places I’ve worked. This is for a fixed salary and no overtime pay, mind you. Then you’re usually on an on call rotation every few weeks where you may have to work off-hours if something comes up. That’s additional unpaid hours. My current company pays $80,000 USD for new college grad software developers.
US holidays are 8-10 days, and junior devs usually start with 5-10 days of vacation. Health insurance costs at least several hundred a month (your employer also pays about 3x more than you towards your insurance premium as a benefit).
Afaik it’s similar here in Germany.
BUT you need go remember: We have social insurance and don’t need to pay 5000$ when taking the ambulance etc. etc.
So if you exclude that we may come close if you need to see a doc on the regular.
Even then it’s a pay cut. I know some people who moved to NA, and egotistically it’s a sound decision because engineers there are on the right side of the wealth disparity ravine. Money’s good enough that you don’t need social safety nets. And if push comes to shove, someone making $100k/y can definitely afford health insurance and the occasional trip for medical tourism.
Now personally I believe in income redistribution so I’m happy to pay a lot of taxes in one of the most income-egalitarian countries in the world. But I’d make a shit-ton more if I lived&worked in Luxembourg or Canada.
You made that as a senior software dev in Finance more than a decade ago, more now (mainly because the pound went down versus other main currencies), especially if you’re working in the Front Office (i.e. directly with business, such as Traders and Analysts)
However breaking into Front Office IT in Finance without previous experience in your CV working in banking or similar is pretty though.
Sure, yes, but those kinds of positions in the US make 300k or more too. Also, then you work in finance and you have to live with the fact that you are categorically making the world a worse place every day.
