[tomp]

I don't believe there's a skill shortage in the UK. Maybe for industries like banking and programming, but in general, it's really hard for a skilled (STEM, except programmer) graduates to get jobs paying more than 30k (in London).

[TheOtherHobbes]

Not even programming. CS has one of the worst employment rates of all degrees.

Admittedly a lot of arts grads don't get jobs as artists, where most CS grads are only really interested in a programming job.

But even so - the skills shortage is somewhat mythical.

As you say - the remuneration shortage is more obvious than the skill shortage.

Housing costs in London are in the same ballpark as SF, but £40k is considered a generous salary for permanent developers. £60k might be possible for seniors.

It isn't unusual to find web dev jobs offering <£20k.

Work in the City offers much better pay, but the culture can be pretty horrific for anyone who isn't suited to it.

[tostitos1979]

CS is a crazy field. We pay insane salaries to people in their 20s (150K in the Bay area sees normal) but people in their 40s have a hard time finding any paid work. I'm trying to understand why this happens have a hypothesis:

Tech is a winner-take-all industry. You get nothing for being second place. This requires long-working hours (it needed to ship yesterday!) and people you can exploit (younger folks who don't know any better). Moreover, the ever changing nature of languages and tools makes it that on the surface, a young person in their mid to late 20s seems as much experience as an older person. When you combine this, you get shitty software that has shipped fast.

Can we do anything about it? Unionizing software or having some kind of guild membership is not going to happen in my lifetime. (we're all too libertarian). We can slow down the churn of tools (this is also hard and requires discipline ... if we all understood the damage caused by the new new thing, maybe we can do it but I doubt it - can you make a promise to NOT learn any new languages this year? I don't know if I can). We can do our own startups (this requires access to funds that not everyone has, and perhaps a particular lifestyle situation; also ... odds of me getting into something like YC are near 0 I feel). Or, we can change fields. As someone who loves tech and not much else, I have severe doubts I'll be able to find something I have as much passion for as tech. But hey ... who knows. Life is a new adventure everyday :)