[memetherapy]

That puts you just below the top 10% of earners in the UK, which is not exactly cheap to live in so I would define that as very good salary. You have to remember that a) FAANGS have insane salaries not seen anywhere else but the price you pay as an employee is living in the Bay Area, which is hugely expensive and also, politely, not to everyone's taste. And b) the additional costs paid by an employer for things like pension, employer contributions to health care etc. are generally higher in Europe than in the USA so the total cost of an employee to the the employer and the concomitant benefits the employee gets (paid holiday, paid sick leave, protection from being fired for no reason, a decent pension) are much higher than in the USA. It's a trade off but I'd rather get paid 55,000 Euro and live in most of Europe than 100,000 Euro and live in most of the USA.