$100k == £60k. 60 less 33% / 12 = 3300 take home per month. London rent for 2 bedrooms is about £1500-2000 anywhere you would want your kids to go to school. £100 for commuting. £200-£300 for food. Car £150. Local tax £200 ...

That's why it's not very common for young professionals to live alone in London. Anyone earning a typical software developer salary in London and renting somewhere in town at £2000 a month just for them is a fool. Most people live out in the suburbs and commute in or live with other people and split the costs. You can get a nice flat in somewhere like Croydon or Kingston (hardly bad places to live and only 30 minutes out on the train) for £800 a month - call it £1000/mo after council tax and utilities. Split that with the girlfriend/roommate and you're spending peanuts.

All that said, the point is that £60k/$100k isn't a common salary for this sort of full-time worker outside of management or in an early stage of their career (<10 years). Clearly people are managing on a lot less because that's what people are earning. The most common solution for the older family types is to have multiple earners in the home which, again, splits the costs down. I can't think of any British family I know around my age where both partners aren't working except for me and my wife..

Never thought I'd see living in Croydon discussed on HN. (I currently live in Croydon, very close to the station, for commuting into London)

I used to live in Warlingham so Croydon often comes to mind :-) You think that's weird though.. you try bumping into people from Lincolnshire on here (where I live now). It happens!

Well I wasn't earning anywhere near £60k when I moved away. But it's not an unreasonable salary for soho creatives or a random job in the 'city' with 5-10 years experience. I used to live in Clapton about 6 years ago just off the 'murder mile' it was a bit like living in 'the wire', but we were younger and didn't care. We shared a two bedroom basement flat between 3 people and the rent was about £900. The second bedroom didn't have any windows. I'm sure you can find rents below £1300 for two bedrooms if you go further out. But you pay in train fares and commute time, especially if your office isn't central. You need two incomes for sure, but when you have young kids all of the second income goes on childcare as both earners need to be out of the house 11hrs per day. That's why we recently gave it up and moved to the country. Is that why you're in Lincolnshire?

one strange thing about the UK IT industry is that the majority of jobs are in London and the SE, where the cost of living is so high that you may well in fact be better off financially if you live somewhere cheaper and work in retail or as a bus driver or some other job that while not totally stress-free, does not require constant updating.

It's uncommon in much of America, as well, except in metro areas -- and not all of us want to live in a metro.

It's not that uncommon, it's in what people look at as 'salary'. In Europe, salary is not just what you get (net pay), it's not even your gross salary (as it is on your pay slip), it also includes the taxes your company pays on your salary, too; plus any pension benefits, health care/SS contributions (including those paid by the employer), etc.

Once you count those, European 'salaries' come much closer to US equivalents (discounted for regional differences etc, of course). The 'US salary' is much more 'what it costs the employer' than the 'EU salary'.

I can't speak for Europe as a whole but in the UK a "salary" refers to the amount of money earned pre-tax by the employee (and not including any taxes paid by the employer). All job ads are written that way and salaries are discussed and negotiated in this way. Perhaps continental Europe is different in this regard, as you suggest, however.

Go and work for a Bank. Grad trainees in Investment Banking IT get north of £35k ($56k) when they start at 21/22. An AVP would get £70k, and Vice Presidents (mid-level manager, maybe 20 direct reports) get about £80k & maybe 30%+ bonus on top.