Most of the “money American tech brings in” comes from the magnificent seven. US software engineering salaries are high even outside of those. In fact, it's high even in companies that are merely burning investor's money.
there are plenty of american cos that bring in tons of money that are outside the mag7.
vc funded companies pay high so they can grow and eventually bring in lots of money, and america has the deepest vc pockets so it reaps the rewards of the biggest exits
Why would they "normalize"? Do you think Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Amazon, etc. are going to relocate to the EU or something? Are all the venture capitalists going to flock to Spain?
The mechanics driving compensation arent "normal." American pay is driven by the underlying mechanics. The USA didn't just randomly win at tech.
There are real factors that could reduce US compensation, but calling that "normalization" assumes the current gap exists for no reason. It exists because the US software industry is structurally different from most of Europe.
Globalization? Look at manufacturing, it moved to a country where things are a lot more affordable. In a world where remote collaboration gets easier and easier and you're able to pay software engineers half the world away a lot less there's no way it wouldn't have an effect on the domestic market.
feel like that narrative has died given the return of RTO. In person work is really valuable
and the talent is just better in the US on average (mostly because of immigration!), software is so levered one good Eng can 1000x the value of a bad one
If demand for software developers decreases due to AI, salaries are likely to decrease as well. Take the academic world for comparison, where supply of very smart people vastly exceeds the demand.
I suspect demand for software is nearly infinitely elastic, so far we’ve seen demand and comp for engineers increase as coding agents got better
Academia for comparison doesn’t make money…maybe a better comparison is HFT? Plenty of very very smart people playing a zero sum game, yet their comp has only increased
I already addressed this in my comment. There are real factors that could reduce US compensation, but calling that "normalization" assumes the current gap exists for no reason.
And that includes London, it lists "excluding London" as £65k.
People overestimate how much senior devs in the UK earn, even after knowing they're not well paid, my usual response to hearing we should be earning £90k+ is, "well give us a job then"!
A friend is making about £180k / yr in London, and they bought a house recently in London. I think that's a lot, and his wife also makes a similar amount, slightly more. That seems to be the minimum, otherwise you're a renter for life. Pretty nuts.
A salary of £180k put you in the 98th percentile of UK salaries in 2024 (99th percentile was only a little higher at £207k) [1]. With a household income approximately doubling that, i'd suggest your friend is in an even smaller minority.
The average house price in London in July 2025 was £565k [pp33 - 2].
There is not being able to afford something and then there is not being able to afford exactly what you want.
Partly depends on what you mean by "London". I don't want to work for FAANG/AI/finance/gambling so our combined salary is well under the 180 figure. Yet we bought a 2-bed terraced house with a garden and driveway in south-west London (technically Surrey, but a London borough) just over five years ago. It's still 20 mins to Waterloo and most of central London is under an hour away. As we pay off the mortgage we should be able to further upsize over the years. It's not ideal, but it works.
That is an extremely high salary, and very far from the minimum required to buy, even on your own. A dual £350k income is truly astonishing. You could buy most houses in London in cash after saving for 5 years.
This is a job for a charity - you're never getting stock + bonuses + competitive pay in a third sector job. UK pay is not near US but this is probably still median SWE pay outside tech roles and London + FAANG + others will pay closer with what you're suggesting with the mentioned bonuses/stock.
I am comparing average pay in UK/US for a senior solutions architect position.
I dont understand what your comment has to do with my comparison of pay. Mind you, the comment I replied to speculated about this comparison. Hence why I provided more specifics.
I think comparing a job like this purely on salary terms misses a lot. It's a prestige job that will be the highlight of someone's CV for the rest of their career. Not to mention 25-28 days vacation.
As someone that's lived both in the US and outside of it there's no denying US salaries are top of the game. But there are a lot of other factors that go into a person's life than salary alone. Long hours in US jobs are not rare at all. I expect folks at Stonehenge are out the door at 5pm sharp.
> I think comparing a job like this purely on salary terms misses a lot.
OK maybe. But that's how the salary compares.
Please re-read the comment I replied to. He speculated about salary differences and I gave solid numbers. You are arguing against some unspoken claim that I never made (something like "more money is always better").