Poll: Full-time software engineers in London, what's your annual salary?
Inpsired by the poll of SF & the Bay Area, this poll is targeting current full-time software engineers and software developers in London, UK.
Base salary only, pre-tax. No options, shares, bonuses, adjustments for inflation, or benefits.
(Don't forget to up-vote the poll to get more data.)
419 comments
[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 359 ms ] threadMaybe it was for him?
You shouldn't be so hard on someone else. I'm sure there are people here way smarter than you or I, and they don't call us "retard programmers".
Unbelieveable, pulp fiction or Jackie Brown if you really must, but really why bother?
In general I think it is a good thing, although I dislike the biggest one (Tekna) (that I was formerly a member of) because they supported the DRD[0]. I have since become a member of a different union (NITO).
[0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London
See here:
http://jobs.efinancialcareers.co.uk/Information_Technology.h...
That's because Finance is not grounded in Reality. Destroying the world's economies and the wealth of us little folks everywhere is massively lucrative, who knew?!
Tech: Primarily Java with some C, C++ and more recently Go (although Go is only in our code playground, nothing even close to production yet)
Location: West London
Company: Small but well established (since 1996). There are 4 developers including myself. One software is one part of what we offer.
Edit: I know you said without benefits, etc. but I included it for others as well. Just look at the £85k figure if you want a hard number.
I certainly feel valued as an intellectual everywhere I have worked but I may just be lucky?
The UK as a whole has long had a reputation for having low wages relative to the US. Anecdotally, I recall coming across a mention here on HN where certain dev jobs were being classified as "clerical" and offered at around ~$20k - $25k USD equivalent.
Working anywhere else in the UK, I'd struggle to get half that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures
I find trying to live in an expensive city while on a low salary admirable.
I live in a flatshare, 40 minute door-to-door commute (via overground, luckily, not the tube) and the rent is about 4k a year.
Our office is just off of Brick Lane, and it's a short 15 minutes to work every morning :)
I live in Scotland near Edinburgh, my first dev job I was earning £13k. It isn't super easy to break into development in the UK but within a year that had about doubled and that and learnt enough to be able to jump ship, which I did.
Now years later, I've happily earning more than the London average by contracting. I ate shit early on because I wanted to get somewhere in an economic time where the young are being screwed. I think it was probably worth it, but only until your experience and talent matures a bit.
I made very nearly that as a fresh graduate with an unremarkable degree and no relevant experience. Out in the sticks with more reasonable living expenses. Thirteen years ago, and I'd come close on several better paying positions. (Tip BTW, £400/mo after rent won't be enough for independent living.)
You're letting loyalty cloud your judgement; you can do better for yourself. Counting pennies isn't fun and you don't need to.
Investment banking is often long hours (9-midnight) plus weekends. Many leave after a year or two or don't make it past 2 years (don't get their contracts renewed after analyst). Also, I'd consider those individuals to be some of the very smart; does this survey really allow one to filter how good they are at their job? There are different levels of software engineer from someone tweaking a wordpress blog template to someone writing assembly code on chips.
Also, what about google and facebook? They pay pretty well, don't they? Also, there are other companies like linkedin and oracle here too. No idea if they pay well or not (no info to base it off)
Working for government contracts as non permanent employee ?
There are smart people, they're the seniors. The juniors are just like everywhere else. There are the actively clueless.
The only good thing about investment banks is that they're more agile than consumer banks. That's probably country dependent though.
Don't think it's like this special place or some crap. It's really not.
On the whole, if you have strong programming skills you're going to be better compensated in the financial sector than at google or facebook. You just have to work with a non software oriented business that doesn't give a shit, and put up with things.
EDIT: @nawitus:
Sorry but your data is totally useless for this purpose. 1) it's the whole economy, not just programmers and 2) it includes part time workers! To imply that full-time programmers in London are working on average less than a 40 hour week is so far from reality.
1. http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=ANHRS
Notably, the longer hours worked in the US compared to Europe comes at the expense of less per-hour productivity in most studies I've seen, though not enough to result in less per-worker productivity. If that's true within Europe as well, the value of the time worked would be closer than the number of hours would suggest.
Imperfect doesn't mean totally useless.
I am from a fairly small central European country and programmers there barely make more than other professions; the salaries often amount to the national average.
This seems strange to me, as it takes a few years for someone to get good at software (the supply is constricted), and where I've been involved in recruitment, finding good people is difficult.
It's also interesting to see that people get paid so much more in finance, or at American companies. That is, a finance house could probably hire any good 5+ year C++ developer at the 'normal C++ developer' rate of 30k, and get good results. But they choose to pay 50K for a 'finance C++ developer', whether he was earning 30K last week or not.
That says to me that pay is not set by supply by labor supply and demand but something else. That is, you don't get rich by having rare skills that make people money, you get them by knowing which industries pay over the odds for labor. I think that's a good thing to realize if you want to be comfortable.
Banks, finance etc do tend think in supply and demand terms. Can't find good people? Raise the price. Hardly ever happens in other industries.
The sort of developers that get well paid in finance (it should be noted that there's a vast range of dev salaries in banking depending on the sort of roles being worked in with Quants, Quant/Devs and Front Office developers being very much at the top of the pile) are those that have Masters or PhDs in Maths and work on pricing algorithms, those who work on high frequency type applications, those who have enough maths that they can turn algorithms into solid applications that can't fall over during the trading day (i.e. solid, highly optimised software), or those who can interact with the trading desks and build anything which helps the desk make more money. One thing they'll all have in common as well is a large amount of domain knowledge about the (financial) products that they work on, as well as the ability to work in environment which are often noisy and stressful. Anyone who needs their own office and a quiet environment in order to get into the zone and hack on some code is not going to thrive at a bank.
Edit: Forgot to mention the country - Poland
Ukraine is in Europe.
Google (or books) are your friend :)
By any reasonable definition, Ukraine is in Eastern Europe, whether you use geographical, political or historical definitions. This is what Wikipedia says, as do most atlases and the CIA world factbook, in fact I've yet to see a source saying otherwise, but you can surely provide links to one. The EU is not the same as Europe, by that narrow definition, Switzerland is not Europe. Your statement that nobody in/from Europe or Ukraine would say it's in Europe can be disproved with a simple counterexample: I'm from/in Europe and I say so, just as a random sample of my Ukrainian acquaintances.
No comment on Russia being "by no means" European. I guess you'll need to do a lot of Wikipedia editing to remove all references to Tolstoy from the pages on European literature.
In my experience it's only people from the US and possible the UK and/or Scandinavia that only think "Western Europe" when they say "Europe".
However I would say this type of shorthand is far more widespread than UK and Scandinavia. My German friends adds Eastern Europe when speaking of Ukraine, too, as does my Italian friends.
The cultural differences in Europe are far more complex than an East-West divide. Saying that Ukraine has a European culture is like saying India and Japan have "Asian" cultures. It sure doesn't make them the same and frankly, it does not even very similar.
Politically and culturally, it's in Europe. Greek Orthodoxy and Greek-derived scripts are something you find in Europe since the Middle Ages.
Not really. I don't know of anyone who identifies by EU citizenship. Not even EU top level politicians. We're all nationals, and even 3rd world refugees becomes citizen of a nation rather than EU.
When speaking to people from US, I usually identify by from [country] or "from Europe". The latter seem to be enough for most mericans that think of EU countries as US states.
Of course the cost of living is alsop very high.
National average net income is about 400 euros
http://4psa.stagiipebune.ro/stagii.html&id=1189&cate...
http://adobe.stagiipebune.ro/stagii.html&id=1241&cat...
Regarding payments to juniors and interns, I know it from the market - I know some salaries of my colleagues. When I started in IT - in 2006, I started with about 230 euros net, which was also decent.
I am talking here about Cluj-Napoca (the second largest city in the country), not the capital, where salaries are better.
So, if you want to live in a place and earn 4-5 times the national average income while doing what you like (programming), come to Romania :))
In the US, my experience is that software developers generally are paid competitively. CS and chemical engineering graduates routinely get the highest starting salaries all around the country when it comes to four year degrees.
That starting salary may be $100k in Silicon Valley, $80k in Chicago, and $60k in Nashville, but all three numbers are competitive relative to the local market. In fact, you will find that in comparison to the cost of housing $100k in Silicon Valley is not quite as well paid as you think.
If you're not a muppet, it's quite easy to land 50k+ in any major city.
Now we're outsourcing to Romania. I haven't had the heart yet to ask one of them.
Finance isn't highly paid for software work, it's fairly paid, by world standards, only because they contrary to popular belief, don't have any class hangups there and are comfortable with the notion of playing in a free market.
Finance pays a fair market wage, which seems high by comparison to all the unfair players out there, but isn't actually that unreasonable.
Startups pay a theoretically fair wage (if you accept valuations at face-value and exclude liquidation preferences). It's when you see the equity/cap table (2% for useless VPs and 0.03% for engineers)-- as well as what the founders have done to ensure their careers no matter what happens to the business-- that you pick out the classism of the well-connected. If you look at salaries alone, though, you won't see it.
Outsiders complain about finance "bonuses" (finance salaries are only at-market) while failing to account for the fact that that's a much fairer compensation system than whatever they get at their corporate jobs. Granted, the banking bonus system is horribly corrupt in practice; but in theory there is nothing wrong with it, and I'd rather have a corrupt profit-sharing system like that in finance than none at all.
If, stipulating the dollar value of the whole comp package, a comp package appears fair, it is still fair no matter what that company pays anyone else. Wages are "fair" or "unfair" based on prevailing rates and supply/demand.
And of course in the real world, wages are not based on supply and demand. They're based on leverage and BATNA.
Simply put, given two equal employees (hypothetically, if it were possible to measure this), it's not "fair" to give one $50k and one $300k. It's not about the prevailing wage, it's about the contribution relative to what is coming back.
You're a $100k/yr FTE dev. A VP above you makes $200k/yr. You believe that VP should be making $50k/yr. But your position isn't improved at all if they do. You're still making $100k/yr, and someone else is taking the $150k/yr premium.
So you say, "no, I should get a share of that $150k/yr premium." Well, OK, why aren't you? What you're saying is that you're worth more than $100k/yr. You already have a way of demonstrating that: demand a raise, then start interviewing.
The flip side of this, if it helps make the point clearer: you're a $100k/yr dev. The VP at your company is already making $50k/yr. This is good how? By any logic you could employ in the above scenario, you're worth more than $100k/yr in this scenario too.
What other people in your firm make is an orthogonal concern to what you make. Clinging to the belief that pay equity is an important part of your compensation is as likely to harm you as help you; stipulating that we are all especially high-functioning professionals, the notion of pay equity is part of what puts a ceiling on what you earn now.
The difference is in one scenario you're talking about a company that can pay out 300k a year, and in the other it's only 150k. Fairness is not about absolute numbers, but relative numbers in proportion to the total available.
What other people make is definitely not an orthogonal concern, and is hugely relevant. Your justification of not caring about other people earning more is incredibly short-sighted. Yes, it does improve my position if other people earn less, because that money is then available for the company to use on other things, such as paying me.
Furthermore, to suggest that this is "irrational" is offensive and irrational in itself, and would not be inconsistent with psychological propaganda.
The word "irrational" doesn't mean "idiotic", by the way.
Ah, I think this explains the disagreement. That kind of "rational" has nothing to do with fairness, and everything to do with maximizing individual payoff. I think you've conflated the two, when they're almost completely incompatible. I knew you were a closet republican ;)
This is why I get supremely annoyed at claims that a specific non-mathematical argument is "irrational".
(Examples of non-computable things: company spends resources on R&D and makes more long-term profit; company spends resources on higher pay for everyone else and boosts morale; reputation of company increases and you attract a wider pool of potential employees; etc.)
In more mathematical terms, greedy optimisation algorithms in the name of short-term "rationality" most often lead you to a local, not global, maximum.
Here is an analogy: the business has $150k to spend. Would you rather have it spent on a pair of paintings for the meeting room, or in company-wide renovations? I think it's rational to choose the latter, though it doesn't immediately affect your bottom line.
If a company has 5% to give to employees in a certain year, VPs getting 1% does increase the odds an engineer will get 0.03% instead of 0.1%.
For what it's worth, I have made substantially more than my coworkers in almost all of my jobs (based on what I could infer from watercooler talk after being around a while), and I don't think that's fair either. I actually chewed out one of my managers once when I found out a coworker was making half of what I was.
Why wasn't he paying him more? Because he could get away with it, not because it was fair. He was a hard worker, very smart, but rather timid. Put this guy against the alpha male manager, and unless the manager wants to be charitable, that guy is not getting a dime more than the manager can bully him into taking. What's worse, the guy will probably come out thinking he got a good deal.
Because the market cannot operate, it is suppressed by the class system.
If you're smart enough to be an engineer, you're smart enough to realize the only way to win is not to play. So you either go into finance, or leave the UK, or grit your teeth and accept that in order to do the work you enjoy, you're going to be poor compared to someone who couldn't do your job in a month of Sundays, but has the "right" connections.
Is the UK class system still that bad? (I'd heard horror stories but assumed they were at least somewhat overblown).
Same in out politics too actually. Might not be Lord-this or Lady-that running the show, but they all graduated in PPE from Oxford...
I presume the US wouldn't have as strong a class system as the UK. There's a bit in Mad Men, where the British character (Lane Pryce) complains to his wife that "I've been here over a year and no-one's asked me what university I went to!"
One of 6 particular universities.
A similar term in the USA would be something like Ivy League:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League
It's a phrase that someone from the associated region of the world can generally go "Oh, you attended a <terminology> school?" and immediately have certain stereotypes and assumptions (accurate or not) come to mind.
But it's quite strong for CS/AI, as they have the largest CS department in Europe, producing the largest amount of world-leading research (according to the latest government-organised Research Assessment Exercise).
For undergrads that means there is an unparalleled variety of courses you can take, both in depth and breadth. I remember I had a choice of about 25 courses in my 3rd year and over 50 in my final year. For most British universities, your choice is rather limited - usually between 8-12 courses each year. Another bonus is that you get to work with leading researchers on your final year project. E.g. some of my friends were supervised by Phil Wadler - the guy was one of the principal inventors of Haskell and, with Gilad Bracha and Martin Odersky, designed Java generics and the extensions of the Collections framework.
So, Edinburgh is quite special and CS/AI is a particular focus at the University, so it's a shame not enough people know it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandstone_Universities
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_brick_university
Martelsham is the place where Tommy flowers used to work its the equivalent of ATT labs.
You like it or not, breeding matters a lot. What all those companies buy is not grades, it is not even a particular phenotype, it is a few generations of fine breeding, well-educated parents and relatives, etc.
So, most of those guys "with a sociology degree" worth it, you like it or not. It is just one of these small unpleasant truths about life.
In general, people with well-off, well-educated parents tend to do better than people who have undereducated poor parents. If you ask me, that's an argument for making sure we have less poor parents and for making sure that more people have a proper education, and not an argument for unfounded admiration for supposedly superior genes.
It's an argument for socialism, not for elitism.
Of course, "genes" does not mean the destiny, even if preferences and abilities are "encoded" there. There are long and boring debate about role of genes and IQ score and the consensus is that "almost everything is inherited but without proper environment, training and fertilizing the potential could not be fully expressed".
Well-off, well-educated parents, in a few generations back, is what could be called the environment. And what it amounts for is not just self-esteem and developed, refined mind, but also non-verbal behavior, which, like looks (a signal of good genes) are much more powerful drive that people like to admit to themselves.
As for ideas of so-called equality, be it socialism or equality between men and women, these are just theories. In reality (at least what we could see in labs) genes are the vehicle of evolution process, which is all about inequality.
It is correct to say that these theories, being intellectually attractive, are in contradiction with the very process which made us. So, it is better to check ones premises.)
For example, people might like it or not, a good-looking person (due to genes) will receive much more attention from people in all his endeavors, be it studying or carer building, or simply having a good time. Too much attention could ruin, and it is well-known in the field of personality disorders.
Please, do not even mention that nonsense that what is considered good-looking varies from culture to culture, from age to age. Good looks are youth, health and lack of deformations ("average" face considered the most beautiful) or signs of good genes.
Actually, any modern psychology textbook treats those subjects is very clear.
Some people seem dissapointed that developers are not being paid more than airline pilots: it's just not realistic outside of a boom economy (see: bay area).
They also have to go through a five or six year medical school and five years of post-graduate training along with profesional exams (MRCGP exams). They're also bit of an anomaly compared to other doctors in the UK - consultant salaries are between 75k and 100k according to the official pay bands [2]. The only way that most doctors can make serious money is by having a private practice along with the risks and costs that come with it (for point of reference, my other half is an obs and gynae surgeon and in that field the private insurance is £150k a year).
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/9300823/Most-doctors-are-n... [2] http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/explore-by-career/doctors/pay-f...
I bet the average Ceng doesn't earn anywhere near 100k.
And your forgetting that consultants often have a private practice on the side from thier NHS gig.
I have a (non-finance related) start-up in central London and it's pretty difficult to find skilled developers with 4-5 years experience who are asking for less than £50k p/a.
I hear so many companies that whine about the lack of perm developers then go ahead and hire a contract dev at 500/day. That is the market at play, if our city cannot pay our developers enough to sustain a reasonable standard of living then they wont work.
Honestly I'm glad to see it. The more developers that follow the market (contracting) the better. Hopefully that'll wake a few people up and we'll see salaries start hitting the numbers that are needed to live in this over priced city.
That said, if I WFH 100% 50-60k would be fantastic but that's not acceptable these days.
</rant>
I moved overseas to Australia from London a few years ago. Same job, same company, 60% pay rise.
Now I'm back in the UK the permanent salaries on offer seem like an insult. I have to go contracting to match it.
In university you're surrounded by clever people who can programme (if you're in a CS degree). It can make one think that one is nothing special, and everyone can programme.
If money is your goal, knowing how to sell yourself (in job applications and interviews) is very important. For job security and progression in general, people skills are essential.
My advice? Don't bother with university, start work ASAP, and keep learning in your spare time.
Maybe also consider getting your foot in the door via QA?
One think I wish I knew about the job market before I started: you'll be more successful using programming as your "secret weapon" in some other domain than as line-engineer elsewhere. of course, "success" here is defined in terms of what I like, and may not match you.
I found my personal development and existing work mattered a lot more than my university.
this may not matter for some CRUD website, but does when you're pushing the limits...
On the other hand, skills schools and engineering programs churn out better programmers by far. They are trained to know how to dive into other peoples code, work with a project team and generally apply methodologies to improving code wherever they encounter it. From day 1.
And yet some how managers still cling to the dated notion that a university degree guarantees return on investment.
Basically diploma level or accredited degree programs. Most of these programs tend to focus on software development at a practical level, less on abstract concepts traditionally studied in Computer Science programs. The good ones focus specifically on developing software in one or two main technologies rather then a smattering of random stuff (:cough: Devry :cough:)
People hire to get stuff done. They have zero interest in your qualifications. They have every interest in your github repos. One cool project trumps your degree.
Employment offers plenty of scope to increase your salary. What it doesn't offer is much space (unless you work for decades to earn it) to study anything for the sake of it. That's your current opportunity: you can choose to study something for the sake of it, like Mathematics & Philosophy, History of Computing or Smart Geometry.
Don't put yourself in a box. Plenty of other people will be trying to do that for you.
This seems to be a massive oversimplification. For a recent example, note how Yahoo is changing their recruiting to favour applicants that have a degree from a "prestigious" university.
1. Hardly ever. Then again I am not doing anything amazingly special or complicated. Just standard business apps.
2. That experience is worth double what theoretical education is. So make sure you DO STUFF and stick it up on github. Write a blog about what interests though. Writing a blog is great at improving your language skills. Also take some presentation skills courses while you can as it is all about selling yourself and your MSc won't sell you sorry to say.
3. Zero. Nobody cares what uni you went to unless you are going into fields like medicine. Your experience and previous work (again stick stuff on github!!) will help more than saying you got a first from Cambridge. The exception might be places like Google but I don't know anything about working for Google :)
the data I have shows me that my (non first) Cambridge degree allows me to command a 10-20% higher salary than my non-Oxbridge colleagues.
2. Big companies pay more, and give you access to an internal job market. Getting work is easier than you'd think, so don't worry all that much. Your first pay settlement plays a big part in your subsequent pay deals.
3. In the UK, elite graduates (oxford etc) that I work with tend to get about 1/3rd more to do the same job. They find it much easier to get onto elite graduate programmes, e.g. in finance, so I guess the employer must compete with that. STEM graduates with a 2.1 or better from a top 50 university do not have a problem finding 'graduate' work. Anything less than that, and you may as well not have a degree (i.e. you can get good jobs, but have to work your way in as you would without a degree).
Since our quirky grading system leaves most students' accomplishments indistinguishable, it's the reputation of the university you studied in that matters.
All the above is, however, a massive generalisation.
http://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/comparison/san-fran...
I have been interested in moving to a hedge fund for a while and even had a telephone interview with one of them. I thought I did really well and it did seem like they agreed with me in their feedback to my recruiter but they also declared that "while I was an outstanding candidate, I was not what they are looking for and will come back to me once they have a more suitable role". I just don't understand what that means. From chatter with recruiters and friends, your best change of getting into a hedge fund is through personal contacts. Can you confirm this theory?
During the period I worked for a hedge fund, no one we employed came from a personal connection. They did have stellar CVs with very good academic or industrial track records though.
In London? Sure, you could be laid off anytime, but if you can't land a new contract in two weeks then there's something wrong with you. Contract market in London is buzzing.
I DO spending a bit of time saying "no, I have a contract" to recruiters tho.
My current contract is for a year and I invoice monthly. If I doubled my rate I'd be out of work.
Burner phones and email addresses for recruiters is certainly a thing, though.
When I was doing contract from 2004-2007, a shit Nokia and an O2 PAYG phone was a good investment. Many times did I just chuck the thing in the bin.
Recruiters will suck up to you even if you've ignored them for months. Commission vampires - that's all they are. You're just a line in a spreadsheet to them.
Because they're not going to go in and cause a huge increase in revenues like Patrick does.
I was paying £250 a week rent for a one bedroom flat in a complex with gym + pool in zone 2.
Rent prices are a little higher than they were two years ago now though!
In the summer I used to walk which took around 40 minutes so I spent a little less.
I would say you could get by on 35k but you wouldn't have much left over. Could do it for a year or two in a grind if you really had to though. Anything less and you will probably get pissed off with yourself as you will most likely feel under valued quite quickly. Especially if you have to pay anything at all for travel.
I live in Zone 4 in a 1 bedroom flat for £910 a month and I only earn £42k.
Myself, my wife, 3 children, a car in a 2 bedroom maisonette with two gardens in zone 5.
No problems. Apart from the incurred debt from having to live on a much lower salary for several years beforehand. That is the biggest problem for me.
Graduated ( computer network management and design ) working in Portsmouth started on £16k (software developer).
Three years with the same company progressed to £25k.
Moved to London salary £33k
Two years with the same company salary rose to £40k
Went travelling, came back, started freelancing/consulting earned ~£50k last year.
You might want to also ask daily rates for contractors... most of the salary rates I've seen are around 60-75% of what contractors go for, and London has a crazy number of contractors (I'd guess 75% contract, 25% full time?)
Note on finance: It's not as bad as some people like to make it sound, and if you're ruling it out wholesale, either for ideology or prejudice, you're doing yourself no favours salary-wise. Banks (by which I mean investment banking, retail is not even on the radar) are by no means a singular working environment, it matters a lot which team you join. Banks works on absolutely massive problems, and have plenty of new work going on. There are tons of opportunities that don't involve sitting in a basement, fiddling with a 20 year old Java 1.1 codebase under a psychopathic boss. The reason banks can pay well is that it's generally pretty easy to follow the money, and if you get yourself in a position where you pretty clearly create value, you can (almost) write your own paycheck.
Alternatively, if you're still not going for the banks, there is a huge cottage industry of companies catering to the banks: financial services. They will be a lot more "normal" than the banks, but they still pay decent money.
EDIT to add: Finally, obviously, contracting. If you have a couple of years of solid experience, you can make £500+/day. Add a good blog, a few conference talks, maybe a book and you can easily 50-100% to that. That's £110-220k/year, with 8 weeks off.
Still has classic ASP deployed, VB6 COM is the backend, "extreme waterfall" is the process and integration via CSV files (using ' as a quote char of course!) over FTP is the mutt's nuts. Add to that a security policy which involves a large brush, a fucking huge rug and a copy of the production SQL Server 2000 database on every laptop.
The system build is the "secure windows XP build" which is XP SP1 with no patches other than to put the company logo on the background, some bastardised IEAK'd up IE7 build, content filters which understand HTTP like Manwell from Fawlty Towers understands English.
The price of muttering Linux, Python or even Windows greater than XP in the office is to be whipped by lengths of state of the art 10base2 with BNC plugs on the end until you submit that there is only Windows.
Management is entirely powered by crack dust and "champers". And the architect to monkey ratio is at least 10:1. The architects don't even know what the hell an HRESULT is.
A good day is when SourceSafe doesn't try and fuck you.
Fortunately we only have to integrate with them...
Stay away. You have been warned.
No, don't work on crap, but also don't write off half the SW engineering job market on the back of an anecdote.
The best opportunity would be a small established business but they get eaten in London instantly.
With contracting you will end up with a lot more the 8 weeks of down time in the year unless you are in long-term engagements...
I am deeply ignorant here and will gladly learn from relevant links or responses.
London also has a large supply of people coming from other countries as the job market is much better here, and these people will often accept fairly low pay as it is higher than what they would have got at home.
So being the type of developer who can get up to speed on new technology is not necessarily so useful as it might be in the US.
I would say that salaries like this are pretty much on par with most major metro areas in the U.S. (not just silicon valley)
In any case, this and other polls indicate that programmer salaries in London are also lower than in many other large American metropolitan areas, not only SV. I did a quick search on Indeed for software engineer salaries in several American cities (NYC, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, Houston, Austin, Portland, Miami, whatever came to my mind) and in all of them the average salary is over U$85k. In fact I also searched for junior software engineer and in all of them it's at least U$60k, still within the £40~45k range which is the mode of the poll (and presumably filled with mostly non-junior developers).
If you look at average programming salaries in Tokyo or Paris you'll see a similar thing. The interesting question is not why London salaries are "low", but how come American salaries are so high.
As for how this happens, I'd say it's a combination of two things. Firstly, salaries in the software industry are mostly determined by market forces rather than actual value generated, because there isn't any driving force, union-based or otherwise, to give individual developers leverage to set rates based on value instead. Secondly, incompetent middle management is a speciality here in the UK, and a lot of the people responsible for hiring software guys wouldn't know a good developer if he single-handedly displaced Google in his spare time. Therefore many businesses that need software wind up hiring poor developers and then complaining about the results.
I concluded after a while that the solution to this problem almost always involves founding your own company, even if it's just a vehicle for freelance contracting. That way you are negotiating with clients on a business-to-business basis and typically dealing with senior managers who have a real problem to solve and will pay for the actual value they get if you can solve it for them, bypassing all the PHBs in middle management and their foot soldiers in HR, accounting, legal, etc.
The result is that companies don't actually make a huge amount of money from each programmer so they often genuinely can't afford to pay good salaries.
On the bright side, if you are a competent manager or willing to learn to be one, and willing to either stomach European employment legislation or hire remotely, you could treat our continent as a bounty of little-used resources.
Education is cheap so there are less student loans to pay back and more people get a degree saturating the market. Having a degree simply isn't that special.
Healthcare and other public services are cheap, you don't have to pay expensive health insurances which lowers the salary level for everybody, not only engineers.
If you're fine living in Zone 2 or 3 ( the grey concentric circles on this map: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/oyster-rail-services-... ).
Then rent in London: Shared house/apt = ~£650 per month, private apt = ~£1.2k per month. Deals are to be had if you can wait for them and do the legwork... those are the averages my friends pay.
Now... on a £40k salary, the PAYE tax calculator here: http://www.listentotaxman.com/ shows that you'll be taking home £2.5k per month.
You can definitely afford London rent on £40k.
You can support someone else, on a single £40k wage, in London, in an 1-bed place (assumes you're supporting a partner).
Maybe you can't afford a car, or to eat out several times a week, or to take lots of holidays... but £40k goes pretty far and providing money isn't being spent frivolously it easily supports 2 people in 1 flat in London.
When ~£13k per annum can support 2 people, £40k is a very high standard of living for 2 people.
Ex: City (finance) contract rates of £500-£700 per day are far from uncommon, if you have finance experience. Non finance, £400+ per day is not hard to find.
UK recruiters are very active here (most my fellow developers are regularly contacted), but even though I was considering moving to London or SF, it has to be something really exciting - majority of well paid s/w engineering here is boring "typical" business stuff.
I wouldn't expect any significant financial boost, but possibility to work for LinkedIn, eBay (Google maybe :) is an advantage.
As others have said, finance is the way in London. Better salaries, better perks.