Is our salary going to be enough?

Hello,

Our company finally locked down our salaries for relocation. I've been soaking up information on about how much things cost, and according to the budget I've made out, I think we'll be all right taking in food, rent, transport, etc., but it would be great to get some opinions. I can't imagine our company paying us a salary that didn't allow for a decent standard of living, but it's so hard to judge a foreign salary offer!

Will 69,000 GBP per year be enough for two people to live on in the West London area? Planning on spending at least 2000 pcm in rent. We have no debt, with the exception of some student loans which don't cost more than 100 USD per month. We are also not planning on having a car.

Been trying to use this: http://www.listentotaxman.com, but it's kind of freaking me out. My worst nightmare is that we're going to get over there and be struggling financially...I just want to account for everything.

Thanks!

Uh, yes.  You should no problem living on that.  I lived on much, much less in zone 2.

Unless you are in the habit of having caviar for breakfast, that's a pefectly liveable salary.

Definitely. That salary is double the London household average and much more than the majority of the country can ever hope to earn in their lives - I'm so jealous .

My parents currently support a family of five (2 parents, 2 twenty-somethings (both university graduates who can't afford to leave home again yet), 1 teenager, in a 5-bed house with 3 cars, living 2 hours from London) on just over half that amount and although we don't have much disposable income, it's still a pretty decent salary to live on.

Hi there,

£69K for two people in the West London area is a perfectly liveable income. I'll assume that's the joint figure of you both working, the average salary across the board in the UK is £23K so £46K for two people. So you'd be bringing in another £23K on top - which spent wisely would put you into the extremely comfortable standard of living catagory!

As always, the real aspect of this is to ensure you spend wisely and have enough to save and be able to enjoy the things you'd like to have in life.

to help you, there's an absolute ton of advice and real life examples over on the moneysavingexpert website - you can get a flavour of the costs of everyday essentials, mandatory expenses etc as well as the quality of life elements.

Only you know your spending habits, and once you gain a good understanding of prices here, you'll be able to evaluate that into your income levels! so, really, so long as you spend wisely, £69 grand for 2 of you will go a really long way indeed, so you really don't have to be freaking out !

.. unless you like shopping in Brompton and eating out at the Ivy every evening!

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

Yes, that's a split income between the two of us. No, we don't eat caviar or anything for breakfast.

Thanks everybody. I really appreciate the input.

moneysavingexpert

And Martin Lewis is HOT too!   

Yes, that's a split income between the two of us. No, we don't eat caviar or anything for breakfast.

Thanks everybody. I really appreciate the input.

I'm so glad you asked. =) I've been wanting to ask a similar question for awhile, but I worried it might sound a bit posh or insensitive. Although I grew up very poor, jobs in the tech sector are relatively generous. I'll be making around £65k, with my wife throwing in another £20-25k. I know this is enough to live on, but everything sounds so ridiculously expensive over there (especially if, like us, you also want to live in West London) and I haven't been sure if "enough to live on" would equate to "eating ramen for dinner" or "being able to eat out a few times a month and possibly holidaying abroad occasionally", god forbid have a family.

Hiya Ucbmckee,

Yeh, the Brit thing is not to really discuss salary seeing as it's so closely coupled with the highly followed 'keeping up with the jones' culture thats very prevalent as well!

But on forums like this one, it's much easier to talk about it!

Just some reference points for you..

I think the UK workforce in the UK is a tad over 30 million and there's just 4 million or so higher rate tax payers, average salary of £23K with many jobs paying considerably less than that - so £85-90K income levels is putting you firmly right up there in the stratosperic UK income earner's!

The key of course is to spend wisely taking into consideration the basics, the necessities and the nice to haves!
There's no doubt about it, London is a really expensive place and you are right, everything does cost alot of money indeed. Only you know your lifestyle and habits, but if yer sensible you'll be potentially living extremely comfortably on just your own income.

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

I'm so glad you asked. =) I've been wanting to ask a similar question for awhile, but I worried it might sound a bit posh or insensitive. Although I grew up very poor, jobs in the tech sector are relatively generous. I'll be making around £65k, with my wife throwing in another £20-25k. I know this is enough to live on, but everything sounds so ridiculously expensive over there (especially if, like us, you also want to live in West London) and I haven't been sure if "enough to live on" would equate to "eating ramen for dinner" or "being able to eat out a few times a month and possibly holidaying abroad occasionally", god forbid have a family.

Just out of curiosity - what kind of tech job pays 65K? My husband and I will be moving in a couple of years, and I know as a vet I won't make very much (23-28K I think) and I'm wondering what kind of salary my husband can expect to make. 

Just out of curiosity - what kind of tech job pays 65K? My husband and I will be moving in a couple of years, and I know as a vet I won't make very much (23-28K I think) and I'm wondering what kind of salary my husband can expect to make. 

Hmm, such salaries aren't that uncommon in tech, I don't think. I'm a senior software engineer, but I had comparable salaries when in product management. My salary is being converted straight across from dollars, though, and I'm currently based in San Francisco. People around here can get $90k fresh out of college. In theory, though, with the cost of living being so much higher in London, I'd expect people there to make a bit more.  It'll actually end up being a fair bit of a net loss for me, because of the cost of living differences. Of course, I'm not sure many places outside of SF put as much of an inflated value on geeks. =) Nonetheless, I saw a lot of programming jobs on the UK boards for 50k+.

In theory, though, with the cost of living being so much higher in London, I'd expect people there to make a bit more.  It'll actually end up being a fair bit of a net loss for me, because of the cost of living differences. Of course, I'm not sure many places outside of SF put as much of an inflated value on geeks. =) Nonetheless, I saw a lot of programming jobs on the UK boards for 50k+.

Yeah, I'd imagine that yeah are some UK jobs out there for £50k+, but from my experience of looking for jobs, if I was in programming, I wouldn't expect to be able to have the opportunity to earn that much until maybe after 20 or 30 years in the business. My mum is a computer programmer (not in London) and after 15 years in the job and several pay rises, she now earns just over £30,000. Just looking at one of the graduate careers websites, graduate software engineers start on between £19,000 and £24,000 per year, rising to anywhere between £28,000 and £70,000 after 15 or more years (so, I'd imagine that most people will be in the £30,000-40,000 bracket with very few up there in the £60-70,000 region).

The average graduate starting salary in the UK is about £17,000-18,000 and in many jobs, I'd say the maximum possible salary at the top of the company (manager/director level) is around £40,000-£50,000. My brother and I are both in the process of finding graduate jobs; he has a degree in industrial design and has just been offered a job which is essentially a project manager for £17,500 and I am currently looking for jobs in science/computing areas (I have a first degree in Physics (undergraduate masters) and a second degree in Geophysics) and most companies are paying £19,000-£21,000, with maybe starting salaries of around £25,000 in London. While I am in the process of looking for jobs, I will be working at my old retail job, which does provide just enough for me to live on, but it still only pays £12,500 a year!

With the exception of people in the medical profession and some big companies in London, I'd guess that most people in the UK will probably never earn more than about £30,000 a year.

With the exception of people in the medical profession and some big companies in London, I'd guess that most people in the UK will probably never earn more than about £30,000 a year.

That seems sad that college graduates with science degrees could be so poorly valued. Do science-related companies just make far less over there, or does the upper management layer just pad their own wallets more? I'm sure corporate taxes are probably higher, but by that much, per person? Where's all the money going, if not to the employees? I could see how national averages would be low, in the same sense that $30k in Boise, Idaho will go a lot further than $60k in San Francisco, and thus salaries are commensurate... but with London far surpassing both SF and NYC for cost of living, you'd think the average would be at least a bit higher for well educated, employable people in profitable business sectors? I can't imagine trying to raise a family in Manhattan or SF on $60k, without just making a ton of sacrifices (with rent for a 2b flat going for at least $2k+/mo, not including parking). Perhaps the answer is the same for London as it is for NYC and SF - people don't raise families there, unless they're filthy rich, and they flee to the suburbs or cheaper environs when the kids come? I never got the impression that London was just a 'young' city, though, in the same sense as here, where most of the 'gray hairs' are well off and it's not uncommon for people to have roommates well into their 30s (or later). In any event, it seems a bit unfair for all of the workers, at least compared to what seems the standard here. =/

(I feel compelled to offer this defense of what might seem like Marie Antoinette syndrome - at least half of the experienced engineers at my company, and past companies, have had roughly similar salaries. I know a bunch of people in biotech who tell similar stories, even if it's not quite as generous. The cost of living here really deflates the salary too - I had a far higher 'quality of life' (insofar as most Americans would measure it) living in Portland, OR making ~$50k than I do here making over twice that. I don't know anyone that'd call my income level stratospheric here. I suppose that's why you see so much brain drain out of Europe and toward America?  =/)

Hi Ucbmckee

Yes, your observations are on the right lines, the UK as a general overview pays significantly less for a like for like job that's in the USA. Ksand24 is on the right lines too, although the Medical profession is more along the lines of the you only earn top money after a significant number of years in the job.

I'm sort of lucky as (being Indian) having a vast extended family and all their associated throughout the USA and Canada, I regularly ask them all about careers and comparisons between there and here, I've worked for large USA companies here and had USA staff come over, also I try to visit the US/Canada as often as I can to get more experience of life etc there.

When I first came on this board,  I asked why would anyone really want to leave the US where salaries and standard of living, quality of life are much higher and cost of living is much lower..  which is how I've seen things being in the IT sector and having most people I know in the USA in professional sectors. This still holds true, but of course there are many people in different scenarios, which I now know of.

But just focussing a moment on professional level which is where you are and a good proportion of people on this forum, and in response to your questions..

Where does the money go - I see what you mean, the amounts charged are really quite high, no matter where in the world you go there is always the padding of certain staff - thats a given, what filters down to the professional staff is alot less than in comparison to the same job that'd have been in the US. The UK is really on the 'world stage' becauase of two industries - Law and Finance. The other top professions have lost their traditional shine over the last few decades. Medical staff, I have many member of my family and freinds in this profession, if you look at the spread of jobs they all aspire to be consultants and looking at the stats, most consultants are between the ages of 40-55 I think there being 55% of them in this bracket and consultants aged less than 40 being about 15% the other 30% being over 55ish. Even the salaries for consultant postions rarely appear to be more than £70-80K with a few usually central london posts offering 90K plus, so a uni med graduate can expect to work for around 15 years plus before getting a realistic chance of being a consultant and their pay would be around the 50-60K mark (on average) the same person in the US would be on probably double that amount within a shorter space of time as medical research is more advanced than the UK. It's this reason 2 of my cousins headhunted by the NHS to work here (from India, where they were consultants) have had enough of the UK crappy red tape and are off to the USA as soon as possible - the brain drain especially evident there. This also occurs with Nurses - who here have traditionally been atrociously paid.

For the IT sector - the average UK salary across the board is £37K all areas and all sectors of IT - that's only £10K above the UK average salary across all industries. If you are lucky and in the top 5% of companies in the UK who offer higher than average salaries all the better, but fo rthe vast majority, the realistic earning level is maxed out at between 45-60K - there's not many job offers/listings above these figures.

There are of course other professions which pay very well indeed, but again no where near to US levels. Tehn the cost of living comes into it, SF, LA, NYC etc being similar in high costs to London but the advantage of thats where plenty of the high paying jobs are.

for me the real view is that a graduate out of university there who might make lets say $37K USD (a cousin of mine from around 2002 in the HR sector) can go and buy a property. In the UK that has been impossible for years if they came out at around £18-20K (some graduate IT jobs being shown at £14K)

A light hearted view..  look carefully at most UK Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini & Aston Martin drivers - its a very high chance its some middle aged to old bloke driving it, as they are the ones who have the salaries to even think about them! compounding that of course, is the UK culture to borrow now and not worry about paying it back and most of those are on company car schemes or have been 'bought' on borrowed money - which is whole other gripe/situation/culture thing with the UK!

In a nutshell - Value for money in the UK doesn't amount to much at all when compared with the G8.

Disclaimer - the above is my own view and thoughts, I know theres much more involved as well.
Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK

ucbmckee, for what its worth, I am an engineer, with a master's degree, working in the medical device sector, and if I converted my UK salary into dollars, I make about 3/5 of what I made in the US (and I am at the top end of my salary bracket for someone with my position here).  I definitely took a huge pay cut and things are expensive way up here in Northern Scotland.  However, I wouldn't trade this experience for anything though and I certainly didn't come here for the money!!!