Salaries around the world

[Yumyummyyum]

I remember some years ago a Canadian friend who of DH said he was shocked that UK salaries were so low. Recently I was speaking to someone who knows the salaries of some high earning professionals in the US & Canada who are in similar jobs to DH and I and found out that they earn 2-3 times what we do here. I always find it hard to find salary info online as most jobs don’t advertise and I find glass door quite unreliable at least for jobs I have held. So I’m curious if anyone knows more about this whether the UK is really far behind North America in terms of salaries?

Definitely. A colleague of mine moved to do the exact same job, exact same company.

He was on £45k in Leeds and got £150k in San Fran.

Even taking into account the higher cost of living in San fran he is much better off. (As a single man, I imagine as a family he’d have been better in Leeds if you need a family sized house and healthcare).

I'd be asking what the comparable cost of living is instead. If it costs more to live/accomodation/food over there etc, then salary will need to be higher, so the actual salary becomes a bit of a moot point surely?

A friend earns £120k in America, for his job he earned £80k here.
his company pay his health insurance and he pays next to no tax!
he’s in Texas so it’s basically no paye.
he has to pay property tax, like council tax, which is £20k a year but he has a massive house.
food prices are much higher but he’s much better off.

But they don't have things like the NHS or private health cover paid for by the employer...so they are not really earning "more" in the US...

It’s true, we earn much less here. Other European countries are much less fucked right now as they have more capacity to absorb COL increases. But no one wants to talk about it.

@Valhalla17 thats a myth on the whole. If you’re a healthy professional, you’ll be better off on the higher salary. Taking my example, the salary has tripled and his work pays for healthcare.

Even taking into account higher healthcare he’s still better off.

For example, say his disposal income is a third of his salary in both countries. A third of $150k is just much higher than a third of £45k.

Similarly, say he saves a third. Over 10 years, he’ll have saved vastly more wealth in the US

Yes, there is more opportunity in the US, for example. It’s probably no surprise. I have a real world example in my (immigrant) family. In the late 70s all members of the family moved to either the UK or USA. Without exception, the US contingent have ended up wealthier and with a higher standard of living. It’s kind of embarrassing actually.

To get a US work visa companies must pay over $100k. This is why salaries are higher and you aren’t always comparing like for like jobs. Example when our department transferred to the US our ‘head of’ lost her maternity leave, holidays, and sick pay. Her salary moved to £200k (from £100k) but she got 4 mths paid and up to 3 mths unpaid mat leav, couldn’t take more than 14 days holiday a year, and any days off were unpaid. She was also paying £20k a year on her family health insurance policy because she had a thyroid condition and her son had type 1 diabetes. And with property taxes and the need to pay for an accountant etc she didn’t take home much more than she did in the UK.

@smooththecat yes seems to be the case for my family too who emigrated to U.K. and North America. Even though family that moved to the UK are more educated, family that moved to the US seem to be doing much better in terms of lifestyle, especially in recent times

*4 weeks paid mat leave

My DH worked in banking and he found the opposite to be true.

Yeah the holiday/leave situation is pretty bad in the US.

Not sure how high healthcare costs are. Would need to look into that. The way the NHS is heading I’m not sure there’s much value left in having it.

My feeling is though that in terms of disposable income and housing US is probably a bit better,

Not in my field (publishing). I didn't earn any more when I worked over there in a similar position.

Also from an immigrant family and my Canadian and American cousins are making a mint! They do ‘lesser’ jobs but earn more and a better standard of living too. They visit us in the UK and can’t believe how run down it is!

salaries here are crap, i heard on the radio that 50k today is equivalent to 30k in the early 00s. But look at the cost of housing today & the taxes you are paying.

UK salaries are higher than French ones.

but don't the French have more disposable income & have seen wage growth over the last decade whereas ours has stalled.

I believe one of the reasons that professional salaries in the US are much higher is also to take into account of the high University costs required to train for many of those jobs.

What I'm super jealous of is that they seem to pay way less tax than Ireland (where I'm from) but I suppose the flip side of that is they don't have the same level of social supports. Swings and roundabouts.

@Farmageddon yes university costs are another factor but all of my US cousins (bar one who was never really suited to university and pushed into it by parents) have won scholarships which has meant their higher education has cost very little.

Fair enough. Maybe I've watched too many Dave Ramsey videos where they all seem to have $200k+ in student loans 😱

That level of debt - without a significant asset like a house or something, would give me palpitations!

Holiday situation isn’t bad across the board in the US - DH worked in tech and had unlimited PTO. He also got paid about 3x what he would in the U.K. we lived in a very expensive city there and now live in the Home Counties but to be honest our rent back in the U.K. is the same as what our mortgage was in the US. Certain things are def more expensive there but others are more expensive here…

I can compare exactly like for like - the work I do as a freelancer is often paid hourly, I am contracted and paid by the producing company but the client actually holds the purse strings. Producing company in the U.K. pays me £75/hour but I earn $750 for a min 4 hour half day (ie I can work only an hour of that and still get that amount ) for the US producing company even though the job will be contracted by the same exact client and the same exact job (client very kindly told me to keep invoicing my US rate despite moving to the U.K. as it’s established that that’s what I’m paid)

This is a list of net average monthly salary adjusted for living costs by purchasing power for a handful of countries we might consider somewhat similar to us (so, not the US!)

Germany $3905
Ireland $4043
France $3305
Spain $3141
Denmark $4361
Sweden $3626
UK $2897

Wow. Truly shocked.

Yes work for a global company. My job pays 55k. The exact same position in America pays 135K.

@smooththecat fuck that's shocking