I turned down a graduate contract in London for £30k, going up to £40k after two years, to be at the BBC. If you want to work at BBC D&E, you accept that you're not going to get a competitive salary. But in return, you get very relaxed and laid back working conditions. (Or so people tell me. I haven't worked at any other large software org to compare.)

Someone I know, who is now a principal dev, was previously a contractor for the BBC. He decided to leave contracting and join the corporation permanently. He's one of the most amazingly clever developers I have ever met.

(But yes, we'd all still appreciate it if we could be paid more.)

They pa{y,id} contractors well last year but IIRC they were drastically reducing their use due to new tax regulations or something.

for the BBC that's terrible, they also pay their TV licensing goons peanuts too.

Wow that really is bad.