Hell, even Britain - looking around at junior dev jobs at the moment, and the salaries are in the region of £25-30k (ie, $35-45k US).

Perfectly livable, of course, even in London (for comparison, the median wage is £20k, or $30k in 'real money') - but then I read stuff on here about people walking out of a bootcamp into a $80k job if they're in the States - and the tone of voice isn't the one I'd be adopting for that kind of money (UNIMAGINABLE RICHES!) but "you're getting ripped off because the boot camp boss has handed you off to one of his mates".

Of course, the 'social wage' is higher over here with universal healthcare and the like. But not that much higher.

EDIT: Sterling's strong at the moment, it turns out, so add $5k to all those dollar values. Looking at the history, it seems I took my stateside holiday at the pound's two year nadir. Just my luck!

I'm from the UK and I earned £13.5k as a junior (at a very large multinational company), I was 21 and just out of university. I only broke £25k when I hit 29 years old. I consider myself to be a good developer.

The salaries in the US seem 'pie in the sky' to me.

I have seen Navying jobs advertised for more than development ones in the UK ;-)

For those who haven't worked in civil engineering By Navey I mean ground workers.

All technical jobs in the UK are looked down on unfortunately.

Construction workers are making more than developers here in Uruguay at the moment, because their union is among the strongest in the country (while developers are not unionized).

But they'll all be out of work in the next economic downturn (on the other side, they didn't spend 3 to 8 years studying)

This was navvying not skilled tradesmen ie the ones that dug the ditches

I get it now... wow that is harsh.