I used to do contracting in the UK in large part because salaries were pitiful compared to contracting rates and when contracting you ended up paying way less tax so got to keep much more of your already higher income.

But 600 pounds is now like $750. Assume 4 weeks vacation, public holidays, time between contracts and you should probably assume 200 paid days per year. That's 120k pounds/year or $150k/year. Not great.

Not sure what contracting rates are like now. It's been awhile. When I was doing it (more than 10 years ago), banking contract was often north of 500/day.

Thing is, those contracting in banking jobs can be hard to get. Typically you need experience in banking. If demand exceeds supply (as it did in the late 90s) then that's not a problem. When supply is relatively high (as it was in the early 2000s) then that's a huge barrier to entry.

If you're locked out of that field your rates are typically much lower (at the time more like ~300-350 a day).

My last non-banking contract rate was 750/day in London. It depends a lot based on whether or not you have experience from any "hot" niches, and also depends greatly on whether or not you develop relationships direct with clients or go via an agency.

E.g. direct with clients it's perfectly possible to get contracts at 1k/day+ in London for relatively normal development jobs outside of banking once you have relationships with the right companies and you approach them as a consultancy rather than presenting yourself as an individual developer.

It doesn't make sense to compare bank developer salaries in one market with all developer salaries in another. Further, what do you mean by "going rate"? Is that the net income or the cost of hiring one (with all the overhead that entails)?

This is FTE salaried positions you need to reduce that by 66% to compare it to a contrcator

I am not living there but I think salaries for generic Java/.net/Webapps etc is going down mainly due to high supply of tech workers.

In US our company offices are moving from major tech hub to smaller city. Initially most people decided to collect severance and find another job locally but now many are finding it difficult to find job with generic IT skills sets and reevaluating their initial decision.

Contract work is not the same as salaried work. I made about €640 per day on my last project, but I spend a lot more on tax, insurance, retirement fund and my financial buffer than a salaried employee. Salaries tend to be a lot lower than freelance rates. At least in Netherland.

It's more like 500 quid these days. In addition to that, the recent plunge of the pound has made it increasingly unattractive to be paid in pounds at all.