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by niwork 2228 days ago
Where in the UK are you based?

Don't get disheartened when you read these big salaries online. The average reader isn't bothering to post theirs.

The UK is actually pretty good when it comes to IT salaries. Go to France, for example, and they're much lower. The attitude to devs is quite poor in a lot of places, treating us like we're one rung above car mechanics. We also have a good contract market in the UK; in many other EU countries (even Australia) contractors make peanuts in comparison.

Outsourcing and the low barrier-to-entry have all dampened IT salaries. Immigration has also played a part in the UK over the last 15 years; a lot of devs from Eastern Europe have gone where the money is - i.e. here. I know it's a contentious issue here but I say that with no malice. I'd do it too if I was them, and a lot of them are talented devs, but there's no point pretending it hasn't had an impact.

3 comments

IME salaries have risen fairly significantly in London over the past 7 years or so, up until about 2 years ago.

I don't think dev immigration has hurt that much if at all. There's a virtuous circle: the more devs there are, the more startups are created and the more FAANGs set up shop. Devs get more experienced on bigger and harder problems, which makes them more valuable.

There's a huge amount of developer immigration to SV, and yet that's where the highest salaries are. Would they really be even higher if FB, Google, Apple etc. couldn't find enough devs to hire, or would those companies have set up shop in other areas and countries instead, to accommodate their needs? Or would those companies have been growth constrained on availability of talent instead?

> Go to France, for example, and they're much lower.

Personally heard some horror stories from french IT, any particular reason that attitudes don't change there?

Yes, salaries usually posted on HN are quite far from the average or median salaries for engineers.

E.g. as a french junior SWE I earn €50k before taxes and I known that’s more than most and less than some.