A good rule of thumb (although it's difficult to summarize the salaries of all the countries in Europe) is:
Juniors up to 30K. Mediors up to 50K. Seniors up to 80K.
Context matters. You take home more than just money. In most of Europe you take home free, or nearly free, health care, education and so on. In the USA you take home a strong military. And that's before we consider local cost of living.
Comparing take-home £ in isolation is almost meaningless - it doesn't equate to disposable income after expenses - or what that disposable income can buy.
IOW making 200k in SF is less than say 50K in Milan. (numbers made up)
This is not exactly correct but almost. I Europe expect around 40% percent of your gross salary to be gone in taxes. Health insurance is not 100% free (e.g., you go to the doctor and he prescribes you some pills. You have to pay for those pills yourself. Sure the doctor doesn't charge you for the hour). Education is not 100% free. For example, in Germany it would cost you around 400 Euro per semester to get enrolled in a public University).
So, for everybody to know: a salary of, let's say, 70K in Germany for a single person (tax group 1) living in the west would translate to around 3300 euros per month after taxes.
> Health insurance is not 100% free (e.g., you go to the
> doctor and he prescribes you some pills. You have to
> pay for those pills yourself. Sure the doctor
> doesn't charge you for the hour).
Just to be clear, the pills are still often subsidized and very cheap where they are not. It is uncommon to have medical expenses of more than 30€ per visit even for cosmetic concerns.
Also important to note that most of the fee of 300€ per semester of university pays for a public transport ticket which allows you to take busses and trams in the city where your university is located and usually also trains within your Bundesland.
At least in Germany they are higher. A friend who is still in college got an offer as a new grad for ~75k. This offer is probably in the top 10% though. I don't know a single friend from college who starts with less than 45k as a new grad. Those who get 45k usually don't have internship experience.
That offer (75K) is definitely not the norm for a new grad. It can happen, sure, but I think it's more productive to discuss salaries 90% of the software engineers in this forum can get/expect.
In Italy a senior dev would often get less than half of that (pretax). Basically just in Milan salary are higher but a junior would not get more than 30k
30k is around 1700euros/month after tax. Sounds like a little but it is already 200euros/month over the average salary in Italy and this is for a junior position (even if I have to admit I saw often 26000-28000 euro as a common pre-tax salary for juniors outside Milan)
For comparison for a two rooms apartment in a city (again, except for Milan) you usually pay around 400-700e so it is livable and you can save enough money month over month. If you are a couple with both around the same pay you can live quite well and with a senior role (typically you get 38k = 2100 euros/month but I see some good companies offer 45k = 2450euros/month) you really have no problems at all and can save a lot + buy a 3 or 4 rooms apartment easily.
Then Milan is an exception. There as a senior you can get quite easily 65k = 3400 euro/month to 85k but the cost of life is London-level and rents are absurdly high in any part of the city, so much that mostly you want to live outside of it and just commute via trains.
Also, 75k as a new grad is even more unlikely in a startup. This salary as a new grad might happen if you apply for a job at Microsoft in Düsseldorf or Salesforce in Munich, but it’s definitely not the norm even for large companies.