[ttarr]

I feel your pain, I've been there.

My advice, get a job around (but not in) London area, if not, get a remote role with a company in south, that gave me a bump from 35k to 71k.

Even better, leave perm and get a contract (outside IR35), you can easily get between 350 to 450 a day.

... and yes, that's doing C++, some Qt, some MFC, some Python, and no PhD/MSc nonsense.