[Silhouette]

> It's cheap to get that salary, too. All you have to give up is your dreams.

Don't forget the effect of compound interest: they want your soul as well, and you burn out more every year for as long as you stay.

In my early career, a headhunter came after me to interview with his London bank client. I did a few quick sums at that point, and it's not nearly as attractive a package as it looks.

I'm in Cambridge, UK, so we have quite a few guys around here who get approached by the big London banks or who choose to interview there; a few of my friends did. Without exception, the ones who took the jobs get up early, commute down on overcrowded trains, work long hours during the day itself, and then commute home on overcrowded trains. By the time they've done that, they are so tired that they often don't want to do much on weekday evenings any more. The only thing that might improve the situation is moving to London, but that pushes your cost of living way up.

I don't earn as much money on my decent IT contracts as your £150k+bonus friend, and I've been working a bit longer. On the other hand, by the time you figure out an hourly rate including things like commuting time, I bet I'm not that far off. By the time you factor in the costs of commuting or getting London accommodation, I'm even closer. Oh, and I still have a life Monday-Friday.

I can understand people who go straight into that kind of environment for a couple of years after university, when you're young enough to take it and you're basically making an investment of 2-3 years of having no life in exchange for more comfort for the rest of your life. But I can't understand why anyone would want to stay there for much longer, even with all the financial reward: money is only worth anything if you have time to enjoy spending it.

[swombat]

Nah, cost of living isn't that high (as ig1 says). I've been living in London for the last 7 years, much of it on a rather limited salary. You can live very comfortably near central London (zone 1-2) in a nice area on £35k. You won't save much money, but once your salary goes up, of course, you will be able to (depending on how you adjust your lifestyle, of course).

As for hourly rate, that can be computed easily. My friend works about 12 hours a day, 5 days a week (no weekends, since her work is linked to the markets being opened). She gets 4 weeks of holiday a year, and there's about a week's worth of bank holidays. So that's 47 weeks * 60 hours = 2820 hours a year, on the upper end (assuming no sick days or other unplanned absences).

That works just above £53 an hour.

You could drive that down by counting her (30 minute or so) commute in, but you won't make much difference. The fact is, she earns very good money no matter which way you cut it. And that's not even counting the (very significant) bonus.

I'll grant you that living in Cambridge and working in London is daft, but that's why they have, ya'know, houses and stuff in London. So you can move there rather than spend hours on the train every day.

[ig1]

It depends very much on which bank you're working for. American/Asian banks tend to be much more hard pushing in terms of hours of facetime you have to put in, but at many of the European banks 40 hour weeks are fairly average even for Front Office devs.

Cost of living wise london isn't that expensive once you take into account cost of commuting. I'm paying £1300/month for a large two bedroom flat within walking distance of the city.