I get a lot job offers in my LinkedIn inbox and newsletters from places like glass door as I like to keep my eye on the market. One thing I’ve been seeing a lot recently is salaries for dev roles steadily dropping in the UK.
The concerning thing, in my opinion, is that the poster linked by OP seems disillusioned as to the standard of living in the UK. They specifically mention being paid £55k as being equivalent to $100k in the US. It isn’t.
£55k in London is about enough to rent a place and live ok’ish on your own, and relatively comfortably if you have a partner whom is also earning a salary in a similar bracket.
Rent on a 1 bedroom flat in zone 5 is costing £1,500 as a minimum. You then have council tax which is about £200 a month (soon to be increased). If you travel to the city to go to the office that is gonna cost you at least £50 a week, more if you need to go everyday. Your utilities will cost you at least £100 a month and food, without takeaways is also going to cost you about £50 a week.
All the costs above are lowballing intentionally and do not factor in things like the inevitable lunch coffee and after work drinks, albeit non alcoholic. The reality is that the UK is becoming a much less livable place and that the cost of living/energy/whatever comes next is always passed down to the average person.
I will not be surprised to see an exodus of skilled workers over the next decade. I personally have set a 5 year target for leaving the country personally, which is sad. My partner has noticed the change herself and is equally as sad that the reality is she will need to leave (after working to acquire citizenship) in order to have a proper chance at buying a home and living a happy life.
> They specifically mention being paid £55k as being equivalent to $100k in the US. It isn’t.
I think you're missing some benefits. I don't know anything specific about this job offer and what would be on the paper offer, but UK public sector offers quite insane benefits compared to private sector, where salary might be like 50-60% of total compensation. Some I'm failiar with: free access to public nurseries (normal price was around £1200/monthy), 50% of costs for private high school, high retirement employer contributions, refunds for all public transport tickets used to get to work, access to gym, swimming pool, sauna, massage and therapies with max. 1 entry per day, free car parking during working days and weekends (otherwise £3-5 per hour), up to £100 per month for books - and this doesn't include annual training budget.
While the cash is quite low and won't get you far with luxury holidays abroad, it offers very high living standard in the UK.
If you are the sort of person positioned to take advantage of those benefits, many of which are aimed at people with young families: some kids, but not so many that you want a larger living area. This serves to narrow the field of prospective applicants to those of a paticular social and cultural class. A single person whith hobbies outside the narrow field of acceptability will not apply. Anyone who would rather go on a backpacking trips than endulge in spa days would rather have the money than the spa benefit. In the end, such specific benifit packages tend to promote a very paticular london lifestyle.
Agreed - my ex has spent her whole career in the public sector and the benefits are indeed insane. IIRC the pension was especially lucrative (from my POV), it was something like min ~20% employer contribution but I could be remembering incorrectly.
I wonder why they don't advertise all the benefits more explicitly in public sector job listings.
Yeah I’m not sure if it is just one section of the public sector this poster is referring to but my sister is a teacher at GCSE level and gets none of this.
One of my best friends is a paramedic and has decided to quit and leave the country due to the shocking pay and working conditions. He has to bail on so many social events as he constantly gets assigned to unrelenting shifts with no notice at all.
Is not? I don't see any argument for that not being correct. Everything you said about costs, sounds that exact same as $100k in the US. Unless you live in North Dakota, chances are you are paying pretty close to the same percentages for rent/foot in a larger city such as San Fran or Chicago.
Not exactly sure what zone 5 is, but a rough search gave me $2500 for rent in Chicago, which is about double £1,500 (roughly), council tax probably doesn't exist, but travel in Chicago is certainly going to be WAY more than "£50 a week". And GOOD luck finding utilities for "at least £100", internet alone is probably $50 US, cell phone another $40 US, power, heat, hot water, depending on apartment is probably another $100 US. Food for "£50 a week" is also a dream I would expect food to be closer to $200 USD a week. Unless you're living on ramen.
Everything I see adds up to that being about correct.
London is basically one big urban circle. Everything in London is directed towards the centre of the city. Zone 1-6 is roughly a measure your distance from the centre of London, which is also the centre of economic activity with many international HQs, banks, insurance markets, government departments, and startup offices based there. Its also where all of the major entertainment and tourist locations are.
Zone 1 is typically very expensive. Typically, with some variation, it gets less expensive as you go to outer zones. Zone 5/6 is getting to the outer reaches of the city, and historically was much more affordable at the cost of >60 minute commutes into zone 1 and higher fare costs.
You also need to keep in mind that the marginal tax rate can be very high. This is esp true for UK university graduates that typically are repaying what is technically a "student loan", but even the government's statisticians call a tax because almost nobody will pay it off in their lifetime given the repayment terms. Many graduates have marginal tax rates in excess of 50% on incomes above roughly 40k.
Zone 5: London's public transport has a fare system based on concentric circles. Zone 1 is the centre. Zone 5 housing used to be affordable on average Joe wages.
But that covers your healthcare. No copays, deductibles, flat rate for all prescriptions of £9.50 per item (or £10.40 a month for 10 months for a prepayment certificate that covers as many items as needed).
Insurance is also less, both contents and car insurance. Utilities a lot lower (fast internet for £30 a month, sim only contract with 50GB of 5G data for £15 a month).
There is this strange idea that the UK is super expensive, and whilst not cheap, a lot of things are decidedly cheaper in the UK than they are in the US.
Also student loans - universities are capped at £9250 per year, so you've not got hundreds of thousands in student loan debt to pay off either.
> But that covers your healthcare. No copays, deductibles, flat rate for all prescriptions of £9.50 per item (or £10.40 a month for 10 months for a prepayment certificate that covers as many items as needed).
Which has now collapsed so in practice you need to go private if you need any kind of decent, timely care. And it never covered dentistry from what I’ve heard.
In practice you end up paying twice - once in taxes for the dysfunctional health service you can’t actually use, and a second time in the form of either insurance or out of pocket to go private when you do need healthcare.
It's not collapsed. My father had a TIA a few months ago, the ambulance was there in minutes, and he was treated in hospital and has made a full recovery.
If you have a life-threatening issue, MI, stroke, cancer - you will be seen quickly and the standard of care is similar to the US.
If you need something treating that is non-life-threatening, yes, you may need to wait some time.
Don't get me wrong, the NHS is being handled appallingly by the current ruling party, but it is not collapsing - thanks to the doctors, nurses and support staff going above and beyond to keep it running.
> My father had a TIA a few months ago, the ambulance was there in minutes
Sure, but there are plenty of anecdotes about ambulances taking hours to arrive right now, as well.
"Life-threatening" is also too fuzzy of a term, here. Don't get me wrong -- I'm an immigrant to the UK from the US, and I think things are better here for most people -- but mental health issues, gender-affirming care, etc. are not treated as life-threatening even when they genuinely are, and care is nearly impossible to get in a timely manner. I'm not especially well-connected to the trans community, but I have some friends who are, and it's quite common for trans people in the UK to move to the US because they can access care much easier and much faster.
Additionally, objective measures of wait times show them increasing unsustainably right now. :(
Like, I live in Zone 2 with a rent of £1600/month, including heating. My previous place (only a few months ago) was £1450, also in Zone 2. My company is revving up hiring, and we've definitely not seen salaries decrease. If anything, we're prepared to pay more to basically anyone who isn't a new grad.
So I live in zone 3 in south west london and my rent is 1500pcm. I signed that rental contract in 2021, but since then average rents in my area have gone up 25% (my salary has gone up by ~10% in that time). My contract is coming up for renewal, and I'm bracing myself for 1800-1900 terms from my landlord. This has happened everywhere in London - 15% increases in the past year alone.
Seriously questioning whether to stay in London itself, but even outside of London rents have gone up crazy amounts given the average salaries of those areas. This country is starting to become unaffordable despite the fact that I'm technically >97th income percentile.
My council tax in zone five for a mid range priced terraced 3 bedroom house is below £200 a month before the single person deduction (25%).
Literally the first search for a 1 bed property to rent in zone 5 (Croydon, specifically), showed up several around 1100/month. The furnished ones in the more expensive new-builds certainly are around the 1500/month range. Those are in band A, while my house is in band D, so even lower council tax, before taking into account the single person deduction.
E.g. a single person in a band A property in Croydon will pay around 1200/year in council tax. Varies by borough, of course.
I have to assume other young people, like myself, want a mostly furnished place because dragging a ton of furniture around is very annoying. Especially when you're forced to move around every few years because the rents keep hiking up.
And I don't think the adverted price are representative of how much you'd end up paying in just rent. My current place went up £200/mo from £1800/mo advertised, because the agent went back to us (and the other applicants), telling us other people's offers, and goading us into increasing our offer.
Anecdata: I share a 2 bed in Ealing, £2000/mo in just rent, council tax band D which adds about another month's rent a year.
If I weren't working in finance and paying more to make up for my housemate's lower salary (my ~70k/yr to his ~£30k/yr) there's no way we'd be able to afford this place. We'd have to find somewhere in a worse location, with poorer quality, or both.
My girlfriend shares a 2 bed and pays 850/month for her share. If you want to live in the most attractive places, then sure, you will be bidding against people.
The point, though, was that lower prices are available. If you choose not to take advantage because it's not as convenient as you like, that's a valid choice (though if you opt for several hundred pounds difference a month to avoid calling a removals firm once every few years, I question that choice; been there, done that, it's not that much effort)
To be clear, housing prices in the UK are atrocious, even if it's possible to do better than the person above stated.
Personally I'd favour the government basically forcing prices down by guaranteeing to pour money into added construction until the market crashes. I'm saying that as a homeowner because for most people, me included, it'd be better if the prices come down so we can afford to trade up, and it'd be cheaper to provide for some limited bailouts for people left with mortgages under water, than to continue having this massive drag on the economy because it's now advantageous for developers to sit on land and wait for it to appreciate before building as an exit (e.g. one of the plots near my local station that is finally being built on now was standing empty for over a decade before the owner of the land started doing anything).
I've lived in Croydon for 20 years, after living multiple other places in London. While it has some real shitholes, it also has plenty of great places. Most of Croydons reputation is down to places most people who live in Croydon never see.
The 1100/month flats I saw were in calm, green, solidly middle class areas with walking distance to several large parks, shops, and great transport links.
Most of Croydons reputation is down to crime rate mate. Overall third highest in London and especially significant and growing in the violence against the person category.
In addition to my other reply, what's your source for the crime rate?
This [1] and this [2] suggests Croydon is about halfway down the borough list per capita, with matched better what I remember from looking at Met numbers in the past. Croydon is the second most populous London borough, so in absolute number of crimes it is usually high up the list, but per capita it's for a long time been pretty much middle of the road, again pulled up by the poorer parts of the borough (particularly, as far as I remember, the Northernmost parts most urban parts, and estates like Addington and Fieldway.
And again: Mostly in areas most people in Croydon don't frequent. Croydon is large, and ranges from leafy suburbs with private roads and mansions to run down estates.
I pay £1550pcm in a fairly new build in Stratford/Olympic Park, ~60sqm. Used to pay the same (until January) for ~55sqm in Canada Water, but for an older build. These are 1 bed flats I'm talking about.
I do have to say, though, the process of finding them was quite stressful.
In tech (which is what is relevant to this post), pay is much higher in US tech hubs than it is in London. I had to move from tech to finance (still in a tech role) in order to get anywhere near my Seattle-based tech salary when I moved to London.
I am just curious where would you go? In my eyes today’s Germany is also bad choice for working and living comfy lifestyle. It was nice low wage country with dirt cheap groceries and not too expensive housing. Now it is still low wage country with high cost of living.
Keep in mind those are people who purposefully moved to Australia. I know plenty of Aussies here in London who left Australia, usually due to poor job opportunities or culture.
> I will not be surprised to see an exodus of skilled workers over the next decade. I personally have set a 5 year target for leaving the country personally, which is sad.
My preference is the Netherlands but it is obviously a joint decision which needs to be made by both myself and my partner.
We are both working in tech so finding a job shouldn’t be an issue. She is an EU national by birth so automatically has the right to work and live there. I would need to jump through hoops as a result of the big B :/
The concerning thing, in my opinion, is that the poster linked by OP seems disillusioned as to the standard of living in the UK. They specifically mention being paid £55k as being equivalent to $100k in the US. It isn’t.
£55k in London is about enough to rent a place and live ok’ish on your own, and relatively comfortably if you have a partner whom is also earning a salary in a similar bracket.
Rent on a 1 bedroom flat in zone 5 is costing £1,500 as a minimum. You then have council tax which is about £200 a month (soon to be increased). If you travel to the city to go to the office that is gonna cost you at least £50 a week, more if you need to go everyday. Your utilities will cost you at least £100 a month and food, without takeaways is also going to cost you about £50 a week.
All the costs above are lowballing intentionally and do not factor in things like the inevitable lunch coffee and after work drinks, albeit non alcoholic. The reality is that the UK is becoming a much less livable place and that the cost of living/energy/whatever comes next is always passed down to the average person.
I will not be surprised to see an exodus of skilled workers over the next decade. I personally have set a 5 year target for leaving the country personally, which is sad. My partner has noticed the change herself and is equally as sad that the reality is she will need to leave (after working to acquire citizenship) in order to have a proper chance at buying a home and living a happy life.