
Ask HN: What's up with junior developer salaries? (UK) - J-dawg
I&#x27;m an aspiring web developer, and I&#x27;ve been spending a lot of time looking for my first job in the industry. For an industry which supposedly has a big shortage of skills, I&#x27;m surprised by how low-paid a lot of the jobs are (I&#x27;m in the UK by the way). I&#x27;m talking about salaries of £15k - £25k, which seem to be fairly typical. And these are not no-skill &quot;trainee&quot; positions, they often come with a long list of requirements, typically knowledge of 5 or 6 different technologies, a portfolio of work and sometimes even 1-2 years industry experience.<p>By comparison, a graduate with zero relevant experience (or even without a relevant degree) can get a job with one of the big IT consultancies &#x2F; professional services firms and command a salary in excess of £30k.<p>I&#x27;m really curious about the economics of all this. What&#x27;s keeping junior developer salaries so low? Is the shortage of tech talent just a media fabrication? If not, wouldn&#x27;t you expect salaries to keep pace with other industries competing for the same people?
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joshcrowder
I run a design agency and generally only employ Juniors.

You're about right on salaries in the UK. Its a strange market here, its very
hard to find good staff and generally companies want far too much experience
for a Junior role.

We take on new recruits with little to no experience in the field and train
them from 6-18 months. We've taken designers and turned them into very good
ruby developers as well as no experience to full-stack devs.

It really depends on the company though, look for a company who is focused on
training. The salary should also increase in 6 months at a minimum and there
should be a clear path to earning a decent salary.

We start at around 16-18K and have reviews every 3 months. The goals are set
by the employees (we track this using a free product we made called Meta
Trails check it out!) and as long as they say they've hit there targets its a
20% raise. Heres what it looks like in real life:

Starting 18K

3 Months: 21.6K

6 Months: 26K

9 Months: 21K

12 Months: 37K

After a year we move to a normal review period of 1 year. The reason we do
this is we put a lot of time / money into training and our results are
fantastic. I'd like to see more companies hiring Jr developers.

We are actually looking for another developer to join the team drop me an
email josh[at]seriousfox.co.uk

~~~
stuaxo
Wow, started in 2000 on 18k ... that people are getting less than that now
astounds me.

~~~
switch007
A LOT less. £18,000 in 2014 terms (RPI) is £27,659.

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garethsprice
The large consultancies are tied to the global market, as opposed to the UK
market.

The UK vastly and systemically undervalues it's intellectual capital -
especially in tech and entrepreneurial pursuits.

If you are young and ambitious, you can either stay and fight against the
current, or find a route to a country that is more meritocratic/skewed in your
favour.

I moved to NYC and the situation I am in simply does not exist in the UK. The
UK is a great place to live in many ways, but tech salaries are not one of
it's strong points.

~~~
notahacker
They're both tied to the global market, just different ends; the UK attracts
business from other parts of the world for financial services and big shiny
projects approved at board level and outsources it in day-to-day development
work, web design and devops. There are still well-paid developer roles in
financial services, but not enough to push developer salaries up in other
industries.

As for startups, if you think developer salaries in the UK are bad (which
compared with the cost of living they certainly are) you should see some of
the _non_ -developer salaries and experience requirements at startups and
small agencies. Not to mention how demanding such companies can be about
candidates to work _unpaid_ for a month or three. The combination of SV
aspirations and cost of living (in London at least), plenty of unemployed
professionals and a decided lack of investor-overoptimism isn't a great one
for the junior employee.

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edent
Remember...

1) A job specification is a wish list. I'd love to employ someone who can code
like a pro in 17 different languages. And only wants £15k. But I know I'm
going to have to settle.

2) Your job desire is a wish list. You want a 15% pension, a BYOD budget, and
be paid to go for conferences. You'll have to compromise somewhere.

3) There is a shortage - but companies don't always behave with economic
rationality. If half the web developers in the UK died from Ebola, I'm still
not sure I could convince my finance director to alter the yearly budget.

My advice to you would be to seek out a graduate training course (if you are a
grad). If not, check out some other training schemes like Talentum
[http://www.telefonicaando2careers.com/gb/explore-our-
opportu...](http://www.telefonicaando2careers.com/gb/explore-our-
opportunities/early-career-opportunities/) (full disclosure, my employer runs
that one).

I would also advise you to prove yourself at an interview and then simply ask
for more money than they originally offered. Doesn't always work - but if
you're worth it, you'll get paid.

Finally - and this probably isn't what you want to hear - suck it up. Spend a
year getting paid a shitty wage and then - hey presto - you now have 12 months
of experience, a portfolio, and references which you can use to get a better
job.

HTH.

~~~
J-dawg
Thank's for the advice! I'm fine with "sucking it up". I'm prepared to work
for ~£15k for 12 months. It's enough to pay the bills (just) and if I received
some quality mentoring / training and developed my skills then I'd consider it
worthwhile.

Regarding your point 1), are you saying it's ok to apply for a job without
having every skill on the "required" list? I feel like it could lead to a
really awkward interview.

~~~
alva
£15k for a programming job in the UK is absolutely ridiculous. I know it
happens as one of my friends took one, but you are seriously selling yourself
short. From what I know, you should expect a minimum of 25k in London as a web
dev.

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MrLeftHand
I wouldn't worry that much. I'm a Java Developer from Hungary with 4 years
experience behind my back when I came here to the UK last year. My first job
was with 22K and over a year I almost doubled my salary. The problem is with
web development, that most of the developers come from a home learning
background with almost zero commercial experience and nothing to show up. This
is funny, because some fields need a portfolio or something, like Android
development, where the candidate has to have successful apps on the Play
Store. ( But who want's to work at a company if you have a selling app which
makes you enough money) These things can water down the industry a bit. And
don't forget, that as the candidate so does the company likes to lie a bit.
They wan't more and more skills and we usually say more that we actually know.
I would say, if you're confident enough with your skills and you can sell
yourself, then always go for the highest offer. They very well know they won't
get anyone decent with that low of a wage. But they like to try. And after a
year or so, go and look for a new job. With one or two years commercial
experience and something to show, you will get a lot better positions offered.

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EnderMB
Junior developer wages are terrible in the UK if you're not a part of a large
business. In fact, I believe a lot of great junior developers move every year
or two simply because someone else will offer them more money. Eventually, you
get to a point where you're comfortable enough with your skill set to be able
to demand more money and get it. Within four years of graduating I doubled my
salary through moving jobs and being able to demand better pay.

I suppose the problem is that there's no reason for companies to pay more,
because they will always manage to hire someone with such a low salary. I
can't speak for all developers, but a lot of experienced developers that I
know will go to a few interviews a year, and if they are offered better money
elsewhere they'll ask for a pay rise or leave. When you're a junior developer
that luxury isn't really available to you.

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chrisbennet
There really isn't a developer shortage - just a shortage of developers
willing to work for below market compensation.

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jnardiello
I'm a programmer currently working in central London (relocated from Italy
about 1month ago). While i don't want to publicly disclose my salary, i can
tell you that you can expect to do a bit more than double of what you just
mentioned. For a junior-mid position you can expect to get something between
45-55k GBP. For a senior position you are supposed to get something between
55k to 70k. This is assuming you are working with a permanent position, if you
work as an external consultant you will probably make 400-600GBP/day.

It also hugely depends on the field where you'll be working, financial
institutions are well known to offer better wages (but it's mostly a very
stressing environment).

~~~
porker
Can you disclose your skillset, as 45-55k is what I'm seeing as senior-level
roles for my field in London.

~~~
jnardiello
I'm a PHP developer. Strong Testing skills, good javascript. Very proficient
with both relation and non-relational dbs. I'm very active with local meetups
and try to speak at conferences every now and then BUT _only_ 1.5yrs working
experience. Despite i work my ass off, i'm not at all a senior (nor i even
sold myself as one).

I've done exactly 7 interviews for related positions in London and the lowest
payed was 45k, highest 60k.

I personally know NOONE in central london ever working for less than 45k.
Doesn't really matter if you are a C# dev, Java one, PHP, Ruby or pure
frontend. Actually, my closest friends use to work in banking and they make A
LOT more than what i just mentioned (70-90k, yet they are definitely seniors).

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hackerboos
My own experience:

* Graduated in 2012 and took a job in the South East (not London) - £25,000

* Left after 18 months because high cost of living and salary increases were below inflation (small company with money problems). Moved to North West and took a job earning - £30,000

* Left that job and took a cut down to £27,000 because I wanted to work with rails and it's hard to find rails positions here in the North West

I could probably be earning more money but getting professional rails
experience is higher on my list.

It's hard looking at US salaries and not seeing jobs offered anywhere near
those rates here in the UK. I guess if you want to earn over £50k a year
before you're 30 in the UK you have to be a contractor.

~~~
londondev123
I don't think this is accurate - though London might just be very different.
I'm a 26 year old Australian C# developer that moved to London this year. In
two weeks I had several job offers ranging from £50-57k.

Since then I've built up a network of connections and beefed up my skillset
(spending more time with js frameworks such as Angular) and since received
offers in the £65-70k mark. These were always "senior tech lead" positions,
but they never seemed like real management jobs and I'd still spend the
majority of the time writing software.

In the end I've jumped to contracting because the money is 2-3 times that of
permanent roles and it was just too tempting. But the roles are there,
especially in London - Ruby devs included.

~~~
porker
> I don't think this is accurate - though London might just be very different.

London is its own micro-world. In the same way SV != USA, London != UK.
Perhaps moreso here, seeing as the country is smaller.

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gambiting
I've got a job with a major game developer in the North East and it's 18k per
year, for a junior programmer. I've decided to accept it since I have the job
I have always dreamed of, but I won't lie if I say that I would like to make
more money - especially since I have a Masters degree in CS.

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alva
£42k starting salary w/ up to 40k bonus,first job out of graduating with a
middle of the road CS degree (albeit a 1st).

If you are looking for a high starting salary, the financial industry is the
way to go in London. Should be 6 figures by the time I am 30.

Good luck!

~~~
porker
..and if you're looking not to burn out and to enjoy your job, not the way to
go unless you're a particular sort of person.

Source: a long string of CS graduate friends who went to work for investment
banks and quit within 5 years. At parties they used to compare how sh*t their
employer was, not salaries & bonuses :)

~~~
alva
Very true indeed!

I cannot imagine lasting very long at it. Plenty of 60-70+hr weeks and a large
amount of stress. Although I do think the experience will serve me well for
job interviews in different sectors.

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balquhidder
I started a graduate-level role in London less than a year ago at £25k. The
only things I saw or were shown by recruiters that would give me a higher
salary (at my level) were positions in places that would be a horrible
commute.

------
ayers
For some stats from the UK [http://www.techcityinsider.net/startups-
paying-26-more-for-t...](http://www.techcityinsider.net/startups-
paying-26-more-for-talent/)

