nandnor

Now i keep hearing on these forums (including a number of prominent posters!) that London is a great place for IT work, that Aus isnt worth going to if you work in that field, you get a comparable wage in london and a cheaper cost of living. So I ran an Excel spreadsheet for Reed.co.uk and Seek.com.au IT job offers. Aside from the fact that Aus cities have far more job offers per capita(~3.5 times more in the case of Sydney vs London), the wages were what really shocked me:

Sydney median(£*1000) IT wage 65,26
Melbourne median(£*1000) IT wage 54,58
Perth median(£*1000) IT wage 54,07
Brisbane median(£*1000) IT wage 53,91

...
London median(£*1000) IT wage 37,47

You literally earn 74% MORE MONEY in Sydney than London. That would factor into 2.586 for the wage equivalent exchange rate. Like how in the hell? And the messed up thing is, when i look at what the costs of living for a frugal person like me would be, Sydney isnt even that expensive! When i looked at median 1-bedroom rent offers on the Gumtree site of both cities, Sydney was at 340$ while London at 280£. Add to that London having the most expensive Subway in the world and big gas costs, Now even with as large a margin of error as that might have, London seems far from being a great IT destination, more like a questionable destination all in all.

Sources-

http://www.reed.co.uk/jobs/it-telecoms/london
http://www.seek.com.au/JobSearch?Dat...Classification

(http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-apartmen...435?sort=price and http://www.gumtree.com/1-bedroom-ren...der=increasing )

( http://www.ptua.org.au/melbourne/far...son/june-2007/ , author claims it to have been updated in 2009 )

BadgeIsBack

Bear in mind that figures gained on a trawl may not show the complete picture.

65k for Sydney is low, as is 37 for London.

Careful with comparisons. You need to get a ultra solid remuneration figure, find out where to really live, then work out what things cost as a portion of total.

Amazulu

London's No.1, and most modest, IT guru will be along soon to tell you how wrong you are.

nandnor

well i figure over the thousands of job ads across both countries the various bonuses and such will even out to a similar number so it doesnt change the overall wage relation between cities much. or what about supers, how do they factor into the seek job offers?

and these are median job offers so i think thats why theyre low compared to the average mean values that are usually touted but perhaps more reflective of the average worker?

DeadVim

So, 'better' boils down to money?

That's a shedload of pointless analysis that ignores a whole raft of unknowns and variables.

But hey, carry on if it makes you feel better.

Why not do this:

Move if you feel like doing it and enjoy the ride.

Anything that doesn't involve a spreadsheet has to be better, right?

verystormy

You could not survive in Oz on them wages. We were in Sydney almost 4 years ago and our rent then was $600 a week, thats $31200. Take off the tax and super and from them, and you would strugle to even pay house hold bills

isgraham

Given the quality of your analysis I can see that you would be worth about £37K in London perhaps even less.

smidsy

Im not criticising, but are you mixing currencies, if not, what exchange rates are you using ? (sorry, but im an accountant)

Also, im a bit surprised that the forum seems to have turned on you and attacked you. Which, from what I can see is, for no good reason.

Sometimes I really dont like BE. And thats why I dont post here often.

On BE, I think people pull out a nose hair just before they post, so they can take it out on someone.

Bermudashorts

It doesn't look right to me either. Not in IT but spent 15 years in London and worked with many who did and the median or mean or mode salary in London was nothing like 37k. This would have been low ten years ago.

nandnor

Well look at it yourself. http://www.reed.co.uk/jobs/it-teleco...salaryto=30000 A lot of web developing jobs especially are getting really low ball job offers of ~25k. Maybe the lowering job supply coupled with high demand has essentially pulled the prices down? It would explain the huge diference in number of job offers compared to aus cities.

Bermudashorts

I don't need to look anything up. And I think drawing conclusions from job adverts is a flawed approach, many job adverts don't even mention salary and reed is pretty bottom end of the market, so you are already bringing huge bias into your theory.

Buzzy--Bee

If that means $54,580 I'm not sure anyone in my company earns that little except the brand new graduates.

BB

Pollyana

Thats the sort of wage government support officers get in Queensland. Even our IT call centre guys are on more than that

bcworld

I would think the pound sign indicates that's not the case but that dollar salaries have been converted to pounds at current exchange rates.

I certainly don't believe I'm paid 2.5 times what I would be in London.

If I convert into pounds at today's exchange rate I'm paid approximately double what I earned in SE England NINE years ago. Some friends & former colleagues are paid (in the UK) about the same as I am now, some a bit less...again multiplying by 1.5 ex rate.

In real terms I think the salaries are comparable and nothing like as different as the OP is suggesting. Ask yourself, if some sudden financial crisis occurred, Greek default say and the markets got all non sensical and pushed the ex rate to 2.70 all of a sudden, like in 2008...would you have to redo the calculations...are people in Sydney paid less all of a sudden? No.

sr71

Perhaps you should try buying your sandwiches elsewhere.

I have always thought the general IT salaries for permanents were not great in the UK. Companies like CSC, Fujitsu, Microsoft and loads of others thrive by having its of their workforce earning only £40-45k pa. £60-70+ would be considered exceptional.

Where you could make the money was in the contracting market, especially in London and especially when the exchange rate was 2.5 to 1