Outside the SV bubble law, accounting, banking, medicine, general management etc all pay higher than programming, with less stress, more job security and higher prestige (if that matters to you).
There is quite a large difference between tech salaries depending on nationality of the company, their approach to tech and location in the UK.
A Principal Software Engineer in the South East can make six figures easily, the same in the midlands will be much less, and that's only 90 miles apart.
Yes ... but remember as well we don't have the "commute many miles" mentality, you tend to work fairly local to where you live.
I might be an outlier, I live 55 miles away from work (1h15m commute each way) so that I can have a higher salary, but much bigger house, better transport links, good schools for the kids etc.