How good is 55k GBP salary in the UK?

[Wd40]

Hey guys,

As the Singapore job market doesnt look too promising for my job profile,I was exploring some job opportunities for IT in the UK in reed.co.uk and I see a lot more openings there however I notice that most of the IT developer roles salaries are not more than 50-55k GBP per annum.

Can someone who knows the UK market tell me, how good is this salary? To me, in comparison to 100k SGD Per annum salary in Singapore, the UK salary doesnt look too good, what with the higher taxes there. I understand that London is the more expensive. But assuming, I am considering locations outside London, like Nottingham or Manchester, how good is that salary?

[excessuk]

That's definitely the going rate for senior IT devs if you're not in banking.

£55k will leave you with circa £3k cash in hand pcm after taxes. It may be sufficient or it may not be depending on your lifestyle and where you want to be based.

London is a huge city and long commutes (1+ hour) are very common. Housing is super expensive and generally very old in central areas (think zones 1 and 2 in the tubemap) so people live further out to get nicer housing, cheaper, but at the expense of longer commutes.

My wife and I live decently (not modestly but not a life of luxury) with £2k pcm not including accommodation. We're currently not renting as we own a place here, but if we had to rent it it would cost us £1.5k pcm (which is what we are going to rent it out for after we relocate to Singapore in 10 days). For your reference we live in a nice area in zone 3, with good transport links (40 minutes commute to the City) and the flat has amazing views and a good size (85sqm, that's really good for London!). We could probably live in a much smaller place, not too close to public transport and without the views for £1k.

Have a look at rightmove.co.uk to get an idea of rental prices.

Let me know if you have any more questions - been living in London for 7+ years.

[offshoreoildude]

Good luck - it's not much money in central London but manageable. Most of the people I know in London are house sharing etc because of the costs of accommodation.

[Barnsley]

In London it would be tough going I think. As stated in other replies flat sharing would be the order of the day.

Manchester you would be able to get a very nice place in the City Center. I am figuring the rental prices havent changed much since I left as there was a massive new supply coming online there and the economy hadnt yet tanked.

Do you know whereabouts in the Manchester area the jobs are you are looking at.

As for Nottingham, there are some nice villages outside the city, but the City itself isnt the most attractive, it did have the first Hooters bar in the Uk though!

Nottingham is also not any of the main train lines either.

[alittlerisky]

I would say that's a OK salary for living outside London. Especially if its somewhere like Nottingham, Norwich etc. Bigger cities will cost more for renting (Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh).

If you are an IT dev, then maybe you could consider freelance contracting instead. You should get 300-500 sterling a day, so close to 70k sterling based on working 11 months a year. Maybe even more if you’re in a sector like banking. And 70k sterling is a well above average wage in the UK.

Do a google for itjobboard.co.uk and search there with your skillset. Or even efinancialcareers.co.uk (more banking/finance, but IT-based too)

Ps: I went to uni in the UK, and then lived there for about 5-6 years working. Although I ended up in London (City), I worked in Guildford (expensive commuter belt in Surrey), Dorking (same), Bournemouth (cheap), Poole (cheap, but also can be expensive, “Sandbanks”

[Wd40]

Thanks everybody for the valuable advice. I don't have the rights to work in the UK yet, but a bodyshopper from India called me and said they could apply for work permit for me. They will then place me with their clients in the UK. Its still very preliminary stage and I haven't even gone through the technical interview round yet.

At the moment I am doing research on what salary to ask in case I do get through. From your comments it looks like anything less than 60k is not worth it, since I am married and have a 1 yr old daughter and I would need a whole unit even if its a single bedroom. Anyways I will give it go and let you know the outcome of the interview process.

Thanks again.