Agree direct comparison is tough and multifactored and would be highly individual (how do you put a price on being a 2 hr train ride away from Paris whilst having much better job opportunities than Parisians). However, given that compensation in US is a large multiple higher I think it would be easy to agree it's better overall. For comparison Big Law pays 20-30% lower on average in London vs. NYC and finance pays marginally lower (outside of quant finance where London pays a lot lower than NYC as hedge funds don't have to compete with FANGs for tech talent that wants high pay).