[spacejogger]

How are UK salaries competitive? Even in London, salaries are, at best, 50% of what they are in Silicon Valley for 'typical' companies. At FAANG companies (e.g.: the Google/FB/etc London offices), they are about 70% of what they are in Silicon Valley. Cost of living is higher in SV, but not that much higher.

[phphphphp]

I believe that 70% is very, very competitive — I’d go as far as to say 70% of an SF salary, in London, is better. There’s a bunch of considerations, not just the cost of living, but things like healthcare, which allow for a high-earner to better leverage their earnings to improve their quality of life.

There’s a higher density of well-funded companies in the US who can afford to pay high salaries, so it’s easier to find a high salary, but if you find a well-funded company in the UK (of which there are many, and growing) then you can earn comparably high amounts.

If you have a £150k salary in the UK — which is easy enough at Google, Facebook etc. — you will have a very high standard of living, so much so, that moving to the US to earn $300k/year at the same company would have very little impact on quality of life.

[nickd2001]

+1. Housing costs a fortune in both London and Silicon Valley. London has an excellent rail network so if you could WFH somewhere with much cheaper housing 3 days a week that could work. Although the NHS is underfunded to breaking point, private healthcare and insurance is much cheaper in UK than USA. Reasons to move to the US would be for adventure, experiencing another country, the great outdoors, all the things USA offers. Probably not for financial reasons anymore. This used to be different but UK tech salaries got better. Of course, who knows what the long-term holds for UK, with Brexit, higher inflation than other countries, the union breaking apart (Scotland leaving), political instability etc.. Not that USA is a perfectly stable country either ;)

[whiddershins]

You know this firsthand?