[mallyvai]

Market rates are complicated, and it's not unusual for employers to do this. For high-value people, the big guys (Google, Amazon, Microsoft) can and will match crazy high counteroffer numbers a lot of the time. It sucks, and this leads to the exact scenario you're describing. The justification these places use is that, "We don't ever want to lose good people simply because of money."

The flip side of this is that it's easy to bump your market rate - just get counteroffers. This provides the basis firms are looking for. Some people are more ruthless about than others, of course - it can lead to the sorts of disparity you're seeing.

In an ideal world we would have more uniform salary numbers with transparency around them, but until we get to that world, it's contingent on individuals to put in the work to set themselves up for success.

[0] I founded http://OfferLetter.io - we provide negotiation advice and career services

[1] PS - you should check out the Offer Drive (http://offerletter.io/drive.html) - "Confidentially submit your offers. Learn if you're paid fairly." as the tagline goes.

[fukupayme2]

For financial IT in London specifically, I would always advise people to state you have multiple interviews and roles on the go, and do so, so that if you are made an offer, get it in writing, even though then pretend it is an time limited offer, and then get at least one or two rounds of counter offer. And don't feel bad about doing it. They will squeal a bit, but it is just business at the end of the day. And yes, do job hop from time to time or else your pay will stagnate. A good rule of thumb is to interview every three to six months to establish your market potential and look at the difference on your current role.

[bjackman]

Offer Drive looks interesting. You should either internationalise it (right now the salary field only accepts numbers and doesn't specify what currency, and there's no "country" field) or clarify that it's only for your country (presumably the USA, but there's actually no clue about that on your site).

Brit here, wanted to take part but wasn't sure if my submission would be meaningful.

[mallyvai]

Thanks for the feedback! Unfortunately TypeForm (which we're using right now) is a little difficult on the internationalization front, but you're welcome to input the specific unit of currency alongside the value.

[bjackman]

Nope, you can only input numbers.