It would be great to get your feedback on this.

[1]:https://old.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/comments/nhe8v1/w...

[2]:https://old.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/comments/nhe8v1/w...

[3]:https://old.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/comments/nhe8v1/w...

My experience is you can't really compare salaries directly, you really need to think about your personal lifestyle. First, if you care primarily about money then there's no substitute for being in Silicon Valley. After that it gets more complicated, basic cost of living like food and going out to the pub is cheaper in London, but high end goods are more expensive and the 20% VAT really hurts. People are generally calibrated on less material goods than the typical American is used to. That includes smaller flats and spending a greater percentage of your income on them. On the other hand though, you don't have to worry about health care, and you don't need to own a car because public transport coverage is solid, and the majority of places have at least decent walkability with some local shops. Overall I would say if you're interested you need to look at potential salary and rents and figure out if it works financially, but don't expect to make equivalent as the US and stay on the same financial trajectory—it's apples and oranges.

I am not sure what you mean by less material goods... I don't think that's true or really means much of anything. Not having space means less stuff in general anyway cause you have to put it somewhere.

While this does have a partial truth to it, the examples are delusional. How can anyone compare 50k GBP to 130K USD?

I have lived across the USA, EU, and Asia; but such comparisons are heavily personal situation dependant. The calculations would differ for single vs family as well.

By the exchange rate right now, 50k GBP is around 65k USD. If you want to live within (say) an hour reach of an office, you’ll have a much easier time doing that in the London metro area with 50k than you will in the Bay Area with 130k. This is before you even consider taxes and healthcare. High quality groceries also substantially cheaper in the UK. A new wildcard is the price of energy, which looks to have gone up considerably in the UK since I left, though.

Neither would be a comfortable position, and you wouldn’t be in danger of being able to buy a house absent other income. All in all though, if they were my fixed options, I’d take the money in London.

Houses, even small ones, in zone 1-2 are now prohibitively expensive, but if you are willing to move further away there are options.

But yeah, overall it's highly personal depending on personal circumstances than anything else.

Regarding transportation, I have been living here for 13 years and still don't own a car.

I still wouldn’t compare 50k GBP to 130k USD.

I don't know how expensive the Bay Area may be, but 50K in London (3100 per month) are barely enough to pay rent (2000 per month) and definitely not enough to send a child to nursery (2000 per month).

It's worth pointing out that this is below FAANG range. A software engineer with zero years of experience in the US should make roughly $160K-190K in compensation at the large tech companies.

https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Amazon,Google,Facebook,Apple...

In the Bay Area, the cost of real estate will dominate your cost of living. If you are happy to live in a 1-bedroom apartment, that entry level FAANG software engineering job will pay for everything you need in life and more. If you want to buy a house for your spouse and three children, it will start to depend much more on precisely where you want to live.

Unfortunately a 5 bedroom house in Mountain View will run you maybe $3.5M. But it depends a lot on where you go though. Look out in the San Jose suburbs and the same house might cost half as much. I don't know much about the London real estate situation so I can't speak to it but if you really want to compare cost of living for software engineers you probably should look specifically at housing, rather than comparing general statistics.

On £100k London is pretty affordable, so I’m curious, how much were you making in London and what do you consider to be a required salary to start a family here? London is very expensive but I’ve not heard the sentiment that FAANG salaries aren’t enough — would be helpful to learn more specifics of your view!

A house with a garden, kids, private school etc. 100k won't cut it unfortunately.

For some reason I thought FAANGs in London were paid really well but seems like contracting or finance is the only way to get a reasonable income.

I have a buddy who was working for a DeepMind and now works for Google (UK). His salary is £140k. Meanwhile day rates of £600 per day are pretty standard and pay the same for arguably less hassle.

Even in London £100k is above a reasonable income for one person. It's not enough to buy a house and provide for a family on one income and still have no worries, but expecting that is unreasonable. It's really easy to get stuck in a bubble where we forget that six figures is crazy out of the ordinary for an average person.

But as to your main point. Yeah finance and contracting really is the right way to go to get a high income. Though I think this might be changing with the contracting as there were some recent changes that make contracting less efficient tax wise, and could push high performers to either ask for more, or just move to being an employee.

We shouldn't be lowering our "unreasonable" standards. If you're in the top 1% in income - you should have an complementary lifestyle. Not just be grateful that you're not in complete financial misery like everyone else your age.

Assuming you're single and in the top 3% of HH income (top 1% personal) - you have 2.1 less persons to provide for. You should probably be better off than two people with a kid. You need less bedrooms and floor space, that's for sure.

If you can't find a decent 1 bedroom in town - I feel sorry for the family shopping for a 3 bedroom on a slightly higher income that has most of that extra income going directly to the tax man.

It’s not necessarily the case that top 10% individual income means you’re top 10% household income (and the top 10% household income can obviously bid more for housing than the second, third, or farther decile of household income).

The following search for 3 bedroom houses [1] provides either flats, maisonettes and a few houses in areas with poor transport links, and many of these are still over budget.

[1]: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/find.html?sear...

I agree with your general point that housing is too expensive! I'm just curious.

An usual downside is that technically you never own it.

£150k per year is tricky to find for salaried positions as a dev. They exist but not as visible (to me at least) compared to the contract equivalents.

The enjoyment side is something I hear mixed opinions on. There are plenty of "disguised employment" type contracts in the UK that just go to contractors for rarer skill sets. YMMV.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_a...

Is that different elsewhere?

Edited to note this is "Base" not "Total" Salary

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/sep/10/uk-mathemati...