
Ask HN: What salary to expect in London? - sun123
Hi, I&#x27;m from India working with one of the &quot;Digital Transformation&quot; consultancy. I have little more than ten years experience. I work with clients to help transform their legacy architecture. I work with some of the newer technology stacks ( think micro-services based, Java 8 , Spring Cloud, Node.js (hapi, loopback), Docker, Kubernetes, CI&#x2F;CD pipelines etc.,)<p>Right now I&#x27;m being offered a transfer to our London office. They are offering me around 47,000 pounds. I personally think this is less, but I don&#x27;t have any figure to anchor on. Is this figure less or is it decent ? Should I negotiate for more ? What is considered a decent figure ?
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tinktank
They are getting you cheap and you should be aware that this is a common
tactic in the UK. They know you will not know going rate/be willing to take a
paycut to get into the UK so your best bet would be to (1) work out how much
you care about being in the UK [i.e. are you willing to work for below market
rate] and (2) find comparable other jobs and come back to them saying the
market seems to say differently. Be aware London is hideously expensive so
budget appropriately.

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tinktank
One additional point I'll make -- if the company baulks or treats you poorly
if you ask for market-rate think long and hard about whether you want to work
for them. It usually indicates a toxic internal culture.

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EnderMB
That is extremely low for London. That's the salary I'd expect in Bristol, and
compared to the rest of the country London is probably a good £15-20k on top
of that.

With all that being said, salaries are pretty low in the UK right now, and in
my opinion they seem to be getting lower as companies look to hire less
experienced developers on cheaper salaries.

I reckon £60k is probably the minimum you should aim for, otherwise you'd be
underselling yourself.

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spoonie
I was making GBP 43,000 at a very small non-software company with about 4
years of experience during 2014-2016. I’d say you’re definitely underpaid at
that rate. I considered myself to be paid below market at the time.

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obayesshelton
I would say that is less than the going rate. Look at salaries for DevOps in
London I would say more like £60k-80k

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alimw
£47000 will put you in the eightieth percentile of London earners.

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aiwabdn
I moved to London from India to do a masters and then found a job. The market
definitely tries to capitalise on the visa requirement. They will try to get
you at lower salaries, £40-50k. That being said, comparing it with the US
market is quite unfair. At £50k you will have a comfortable life. But given
you have 10 years of experience, you should definitely push for more. The
other option would be to move here and find a better paying job.

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kleer001
check out glassdoor.com , they're not perfect, but a little is better than
nothing

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badpun
> glassdoor.com , they're not perfect, but a little is better than nothing

haha, that is so accurate.

