Ask HN: What's up with junior developer salaries? (UK)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8550251

by J-dawg • 12 years ago

25 41 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'm an aspiring web developer, and I'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'm surprised by how low-paid a lot of the jobs are (I'm in the UK by the way). I'm talking about salaries of £15k - £25k, which seem to be fairly typical. And these are not no-skill "trainee" 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.

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 / professional services firms and command a salary in excess of £30k.

I'm really curious about the economics of all this. What's keeping junior developer salaries so low? Is the shortage of tech talent just a media fabrication? If not, wouldn't you expect salaries to keep pace with other industries competing for the same people?

jnardiello4• 12 years ago

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).

porker4• 12 years ago

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

jnardiello4• 12 years ago

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).

joshcrowder5• 12 years ago

Not for a Jr role. The average salary for juniors is around 18-24K.

ayers2• 12 years ago

I would love to know where you have seen juniors get £45k. From the developers and companies I know in London this is very much not the case. As other people have mentioned, 18-30K would be more "normal".

jnardiello4• 12 years ago

As i mentioned, i never ever heard of an offer for less than 45k. Which makes sense as you just can't live with 20k in London.

edent2• 12 years ago

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... (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-dawg2• 12 years ago

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.

edent2• 12 years ago

Oh! TOTALLY!

Worst case scenario, you just won't get called for interview. More often than not, however, I've written a job spec for the perfect candidate. I know I'm going to have to settle.

alva4• 12 years ago

£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.

MrLeftHand• 12 years ago

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.

joshcrowder5• 12 years ago

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

J-dawg2• 12 years ago

It's a shame more employers don't share your approach! Out of interest, what's in it for you? Why not just hire an experienced dev for £37k and save yourself a year of training someone?

What are your requirements for a junior developer?

dan_b• 12 years ago

Sometimes experienced devs come with bad habits.

stuaxo• 12 years ago

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

switch007• 12 years ago

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

kohanz• 12 years ago

I assume you meant 9 Months: 31k?

joshcrowder5• 12 years ago

Yes correct!

mavsman• 12 years ago

I'm still looking into Meta Trails but can you speak to how it is better than web apps that are so common like Codecademy? With those, it seems like it's easy to just go through the motions and complete the tasks without actually learning anything. Is Meta Trails even close to those coding teachers or is it entirely different?

joshcrowder5• 12 years ago

Sorry for the late reply.

Meta trails is a companion to tools like Codeacademy or Team Treehouse. What we've found is its really hard to answer questions like 'Do you know CSS' its much easier to ask smaller questions like can you postion an element on a page, can you style typography correctly. By asking these smaller questions you can gauge where you are and whats missing.

Meta Trails asks you those questions, its more of a tool than a platform.

Mimu• 12 years ago

I live in France but often, when a company wants you for little money in exchange of formation, what they mean is you'll have access to google.

Not saying this is what joshcrowder do, not to mention UK and France are probably very different in mentality and all, but I would make sure that what they say is true. 12 months of experience is good, 12 months of irrelevant shitty projects when you didn't learn a single thing not so much.

hackerboos• 12 years ago

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.

londonymous2• 12 years ago

Contracting is definitely the way to go in London. To add another data point, I have slightly over two years industry experience and make what would be equivalent to a six-figure salary if I were a full-time employee.

porker4• 12 years ago

To add another data point, I have slightly over two years industry experience and make what would be equivalent to a six-figure salary if I were a full-time employee.

I would posit that you also have very good sales skills or are working in an in-demand niche (mobile?). I would've loved to be there after 2 years' experience; alas learning to big myself up took a bit longer!

londondev123• 12 years ago

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.

porker4• 12 years ago

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.

jnardiello4• 12 years ago

Yes exactly. This is more or less the ranges i experienced as well.

alva4• 12 years ago

£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!

joshcrowder5• 12 years ago

Very true! Financial pays the highest salaries for devs at the moment.

yulaow• 12 years ago

That's true but you have to consider the amount of hours you'll do. I mean, if you get doubled the salary but also the hours per weeks it is not a real gain (it is just if you want to sacrifice the rest of your activities/mental_sanity for more money in the short term)

porker4• 12 years ago

..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 :)

alva4• 12 years ago

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.

EnderMB• 12 years ago

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.

chrisbennet• 12 years ago

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

gambiting• 12 years ago

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.

balquhidder• 12 years ago

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.

garethsprice• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

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.

ayers2• 12 years ago

For some stats from the UK http://www.techcityinsider.net/startups-paying-26-more-for-t...

Ask HN: What's up with junior developer salaries? (UK)

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