It's not as bad as you think. The number of applicants is lower per position outside London and the ratio of muppets to positions is higher.

If you're not a muppet, it's quite easy to land 50k+ in any major city.

Not many advertised positions here in Leeds pay 50k. Senior roles seem to top out at 45k.

Look at large I.T service companies, e.g Accenture. They don't tend to advertise much, and you have to apply directly via their websites.

I recently saw Accenture advertising for a load of intermediate PHP developers in my region. They were being advertised through third party recruiters, so I got to see the salary, which was around 20K. On this occasion it was even lower than design agencies, who already struggle to find developers on their pay levels.

That's odd because their graduate developer scheme pays 32k