Every internet thread about anywhere popular is quickly filled with people saying that they tried it and didn't like it. That's natural and I think fine, and anyone considering moving to London should consider all the disadvantages.
But there are also great advantages: it's easy to find work here, it's a walkable place where there is no need to own a car (or even know how to drive), although many complain the weather is in fact very mild and it's very achievable for someone on a software engineer salary to raise a family close(ish) to the centre. Of course there's plenty of "cultural" whatnot too. I love it here and wouldn't move anywhere else.
If you are thinking about moving here, I'm happy to answer any "dumb" questions you have over email (see my profile).
The primary disadvantage is the high cost of housing. That is the "root cause" of many other knock-on problems that are caused: inappropriate living space for some people, some with long commutes, some people feeling like they or others they know don't really live in London but instead in some dormitory town outside the M25. Until we can get the cost of housing under control there are all sorts of people who I would like to live here and "be part of it" but whose lines of work don't pay them enough to.
But this problem arguably exists in every Western city at the moment. I have my own pet policy ideas which I won't raise here. I will say that this problem seems to be markedly worse elsewhere, for example in American cities, Australia, Canada and also even on (western half of) the continent.
Let me tell you a story. I am a linux kernel level developer. Even better, I have implemented multiple windows drivers in my life. And I have tried to implement application level firewall for linux as after 20 years there is still none around (I have abandoned the work as kernel was protected against my method). Proficient in C/C++/Rust/Go/Java/Python/Assembly/... or to rather say it in anything in Tiobe, even Prolog.
I have a nice job at my country at 2250 euros / month (which is twice the average salary) and I was asked to work for some company where I would get around 3000 euros/month.
And now it gets interesting. On interview, they will ask me various questions about my work that should theoretically be memorized by anyone comming from the school education. I have 25 years of development behind me and I dont have the "stack" to remember everything. And I am already decided to give them "fuck off" once they start with the theory.
On other side, I have a child from previous marriage and I will not leave the country for the sake of the team. Child development is more important to me.
So, I am over-competent engineer, bullied by idiotic recruiting, fixed in the position that I have, unable to relocate due to life circumstances. And now "moving to London" is a thing. Yeah right.
Your competencies might be real and correctly-assessed, but from your description, you sound like you might be difficult to work with.
I don't mean to extrapolate from Internet-rant to presumed-reality, but this is a common pattern, so maybe it's worth mentioning:
I can teach a person Prolog. Any reasonable developer can teach themselves Prolog.
I cannot teach a person, nor have I ever witnessed a person self-educate on a short (employer-relevant) timescale, the willingness and propensity to work cooperatively and constructively, if it is not in their nature at interview-time.
Sometimes the latter is much more important than the former.
Negativity is infectious, and people naturally steer clear.
You could always pick one language to be an "expert" in and just study up on the book learning for that language for your interviews. I've shipped products in a dozen languages myself, but for an Android interview I'll only claim to be expert in Java and Kotlin, for iOS I'll only claim to know Objective-C and Swift, and for server I only claim to know Java and Go - even though I've shipped PhoneGap and React Native JS mobile apps, JS Node servers for startups that got funded, Amazon lambda functions triggered from Unity, etc.. Just not up to speed on the book learning/pop quiz/mind teaser type questions I'd get for those.
As a native-born Brit who moved to Eastern Europe four years ago, there is some information in here I actually didn't know.
Also, as someone who has moved country twice (six years in Italy was the first time), I should note that this article doesn't deal with what I can only describe as general UK culture and the British character.
I would strongly advise anyone heading Britside to do what I did with Bucharest and have as long an 'exploratory' trip as you can to get a feel of the place: the way people look you in the eye (or don't); whether you sense hostility; and just the general social atmosphere. You can assess this kind of thing in a couple of weeks, usually, at least at a broad level.
As someone who gladly left, I'm obviously not the person to ask about whether you'd like living there. But it would be a good idea to stay with friends there, if possible, and scout that aspect out for yourself.
Absolutely agree on checking the situation on he ground before committing to move to another country. The culture and the expat vibe are going to be important factors in your life from here on out.
We did a winter in Nicaragua with the intention of scoping out the possibility of buying a house. It looks pretty good on paper, until you meet the grumpy expat American surfers who will be your pool of future friends and see the soulless dusty plots of building land with all the locals cleared out except one guy with a shotgun whose job is to sit the same plastic chair all day every day... yeah. Pass.
Naturally this is written from the perspective of a US expat developer with the entire world to chose from, so it’s a bit of a different situation to the one discussed in the article.
As a third-worlder from a loud country that's very happy after emigrating to Britain I had the opposite experience: the culture and the British character are big positives of living in London and the UK.
Maybe the grass is always greener on the other side, but I enjoy the quietness and helpfulness of the average Brit.
The only big negatives of UK culture for me are the general bad quality of produce outside of farmer's markets and the weird attachment everyone has to sash windows.
Same experience here. I'm originally from Italy, where the stereotype is friendly and warm people, I found Brits and Londoners in general to be quite easy to have a chat with, and relaxed around strangers especially after a pint or
three. After 7 years in this country, my experience hasn't changed and I've grown very fond of the "British way" of doing things, the humour and mentality.
While I moved to UK, part of my family moved to Switzerland (the French part of it), and their experience with Swiss people hasn't been as rosy as mine with Brits.
A Canadian friend who spent 3 months on a work assignment in London felt similarly. He said that compared to Toronto, British people were far more open to striking up conversation. In Toronto, if you walk into a bar by yourself, you can forget about trying to make small talk with somebody else unless they too are sitting alone.
Not to mention, there are numerous instances of people getting harassed on the train platform, or inside the train car, and no one steps up to help. They film the incident, but they don't intervene.
The thing that prevents me from wanting to live in the UK is the food… I’m sorry if I offend anyone but the UK is one of the worst places in the world I’ve been to for food.
I wanted to settle in Europe prior to Brexit finalizing, but I felt I was kind of done with Italy, having lived all over that country. Romanian is another Romance language, like Italian, so I figured (quite wrongly!) that it would be easy to learn. It was a right move for the wrong reasons, and I eventually found everything I was looking for here, including well-paid remote work (prior even to COVID).
I'm from the UK so the section "What percentage of your salary goes to taxes?" seemed perfectly normal to me.
The way the "comment from the editor" is written ("Unfortunately, in England, higher salaries will mean higher tax rates." and "England's tax brackets can be slightly confusing") make it sound like this is not commonly how it works in other counties.
Could anyone tell me about how this differs from where you are?
I definitely can't, I haven't seen a country where it doesn't work the same way as in the UK. I suspect the author gets confused by the tiered tax rates the same way everyone is, where they think that if you make 45,001 GBP, you are now going to pay more tax on the entire amount, rather than just the extra GBP.
It's astounding that people smart enough to land a job that pays enough to push them into the higher rate band of income tax are so often confused about how their taxes are actually calculated!
This section of the article has a detailed explanation on tax brackets in the UK, including a worked example for an "average software developer salary", so this is clearly not the case.
I found the wording "Unfortunately, in England, higher salaries will mean higher tax rates" to be slightly strange. To me, it's fortunate that those who earn less pay lower taxes than those of us who can afford more.
Even more confusing is that the full quote at the beginning of that paragraph mentions capital gains tax right after:
"Unfortunately, in England, higher salaries will mean higher tax rates. Data released late in 2020 showed that Londoners contribute to nearly 30% of the country's capital gains tax"
??? Either the author mistakenly wrote capital gains instead of income, or they were just citing something completely irrelevant to the discussion.
Regarding the "confusing progressive tax rates", I agree with you. "Most systems around the world contain progressive aspects." [0] And a look at "tax rates around the world" shows most countries have higher marginal tax rates for higher incomes [1]
But then you have to factor in National Insurance contributions, which also have a (different) threshold below which they don't cost anything, then cost you 12% up to around the £50K mark, then cost you 2% over that.
And even that isn't quite the whole story, because you'll also lose certain child-related benefits starting from £50K if you have kids, so your effective rate for the next £10K or so can work out much higher than 40%.
Then there are the effects of not-unusual things like pension contributions and charitable donations, which can move things around a bit more.
It's hardly a surprise that people find the system confusing!
One of the good things about UK taxes is that you don’t have to calculate them yourself and file a return. They are calculated by your employer and deducted from your salary.
It's generally a good idea to check them yourself as well. HMRC does sometimes make mistakes with people's tax codes, resulting in the wrong amount being taken off your pay, and your employer doesn't (and can't) correct those mistakes for you. Usually when there's a mistake it will eventually be corrected automatically by HMRC but that can leave you with an unexpected extra tax bill (or a refund, which is usually less of a problem), but those corrections happen months after the end of the tax year.
Also if you pass a certain income threshold you're required to fill in your own tax return anyway.
Anyone earning £100,000+ in the UK does have to file a return, however most of the calculations are done for you. Your employer handles all deductions from your payslip and gives you a summary form of all tax paid, which you then report in your tax return with additional details that might affect your taxes such as capital gains, additional pension contributions or investment and rental income.
You can negotiate your net salary in graduated tax regimes as well. The math isn’t as clean, but as long as the tax calculation is deterministic, you can negotiate a salary so that you get a nice round number in your bank account every month.
For some reason this isn’t common practice. I’ve always found it weird that salaries are quoted in gross amount.
In some cases the round number may not be the “net” amount because eg maybe you have some rental income, or income from last year, moved to a new state, etc. But in most cases it’ll be pretty close.
I think 25% is an underestimate. A typical tax level for someone on a professional salary in the UK is something like 30-35%. Remember there is the higher rate of income tax, NI, council tax, and so on.
Most people never interact with capital gains tax in their lives.
Well-paid freelance developers usually IR35 - set up a limited company, pay themselves the smallest possible salary which avoids National Insurance contributions, and take the rest as dividends.
This used to be an easy way to minimise tax, although now it's a more complex calculation. And HMRC have to be persuaded that you really are freelance, and not just a long-term contractor working on-site.
There other semi-legal dodges including companies which loan you your income - minimal tax - and then for various more or less credible reasons the loan is written off and never has to be repaid. HMRC usually take a while to catch to these kinds of schemes. But short term gain can lead to long-term pain because if they're ruled unlawful HMRC can claw back tax retrospectively.
I moved out of the UK a few years ago, and while there's a lot to dislike - which is why I moved - the tax laws are fairly generous to one-person small businesses. Brexit has now massively complicated this for anyone selling internationally, but UK B2B is not so bad.
Or working for a bank, which is the classic high-paid London job. The pure software engineers get paid less than quants/traders (which can get astronomical comp depending on what exactly they do) but usually still very substantial.
I used to live in Harrow on the Hill. Zone 5, but great connection to central London with the metropolitan line. Much better commute than when I lived in Parsons Green, which was zone 2!
Even as a British citizen who likes city life, London in particular never tempted me, because of both the nationally infamous housing cost and the un-fun experience of Tube travel.
Last time I lived in London I actually enjoyed trying to use the bus as much as possible. Riding on the top of a double decker bus is a nice experience: there is almost always seating available, the views are better, the air is less stuffy / you're less likely to melt in the summer, you are more likely to get directly from point A to point B, and it's cheaper.
All that combined means it's much easier / more enjoyable to do some work / read a book on your commute if you're using the bus, which for me was worth the extra journey time.
Obviously for longer journeys you still need the tube/train, but I lived fairly centrally so was able to either bus or bike 90% of the time.
I lived in London most of my life, but I am thinking about moving to a smaller city. What would you recommend in terms of safety, access to tech scene and property prices?
It's much easier to get a remote gig, so it seems like a location will no longer be a problem.
We own a 3 story 4 bedroom townhouse with garden and garage in Enfield, ~ 400k. Mortgage is about 1400 a month. The countryside is close by, both Hertfordshire and Essex.
Housing is expensive in rough proportion to how central you are, and especially how close to tube stations you are. But it's also possible to live quite well. My commute would be a little over 1 hour each way by public transport, but I generally used a motorbike, closer to 35 minutes.
We are however leaving, in large part due to Brexit. I'm Irish, my partner is German, and neither of us wants our son to be schooled in this country. The political situation is heading in an Orban-like direction, they're locking up EU citizens at the border and the anti-EU rhetoric from leadership and tabloids is relentless.
I would not come here as an EU citizen.
I quit my job and joined Google in part because they'll relocate me to Zurich.
As some who has to get work permits in 2 different countries, and have friends who did in 10, I can testify that British immigration system is one of the most difficult, arbitrary and expensive, far supassing Spain, portugal, Germany, Czech Republic, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Ireland, France, etc
The only immigration system I am aware of that's more hostile is US.
Obviously there are many countries I know nothing about
How many people do you think live in the EU? Because the largest countries (China and India, respectively) 'only' have about 1.3 billion people each, about 3x the EU at 450 million. Even the entire rest of the earth combined won't get you to "north of 20x" that number.
Okay London is awesome, and good for this guy for moving there.
WOW though, "Above £60,000" salary. Despite the exchange rate, £1 pretty much buys you the same goods as $1 in the US (£5 coffee anyone?).
For such a high cost city, this pay sounds atrocious. You could live in SF and make literally triple that easily.
Plus the taxes are super high in London too.
I don't really buy the idea that having the NHS makes this all worth it either. Working in California you can get an employer health plan (Kaiser, etc) for $50 a month pre-tax that is in fact better in quality (no wait times, no need to get referrals to see any kind of doctor you want) than the NHS and never have to pay more than a $20 copay for any service.
It sounds like a super fun life experience, money isn't everything, I would absolutely love to do this but I don't know how I could ever justify cutting my pay from 350k -> 115k AND paying super high tax just to live in a specific city.
As an engineer in the UK this is probably true. I’m currently in finance which to some extent defies gravity, but in general it’s true that a good Software engineer salary in London is 50-100k pounds. FANG probably 100-150. And your effective rate of tax will be 30%ish and a decent place to live will be 2-3k. It’s definitely better being in the US for software.
You could argue this is why companies in the UK are recruiting from lower cost countries - because they don’t compete with higher cost countries in terms of compensation.
If someone gets 60k in London, it's probably they have not even tried to negotiate. However even if you get 100k, then good chunk of that is eaten by taxes.
Only way to get reasonable money was b2b, but recent changes to IR35 made it difficult. If you get caught by the rules you may pay over 50% of tax.
UK for IT is over.
The NHS indeed is underwhelming. I have to use private doctors because in my case NHS was useless.
AFAIK in London you'll be making more as an Uber or cab driver than as a dev if you are not interested working in finance sector or at a couple of advertising shops.
Tons of relatively unknown companies making 100mln per year, paying 100k for seniors (usually stock comp is worthless though, that's how fang engineers make their money).
Personally I've always avoided fangs because of politics and having to commute in the office (which also means I could move outside of London).
It's not USA salaries but you get cheaper healthcare, more holidays, you can make some decent living and the extra freedom is welcome if you have a family or if you want to have a rich social life.
I agree. I know plenty unskilled workers who make more money than even senior devs. They are all self employed though.
I remember being quite frustrated when a friend who was a cleaner made fun of me that she was making more than me.
I've never understood why people pay so much money to live in studio flats in crap areas of a city. We live out in Kent and including a drive to the train station and buying the ticket can be in central London in 40 minutes. That gets us an £1100 mortgage payment on a 4 bed house surrounded by farmland. Sometimes when we meet friends who live in London for dinner it takes them longer to get to the restaurant than it does us.
It is interesting how companies can justify sponsoring someone on the basis other than they cannot find a specialist for the money they are willing to pay.
Don't get me wrong - immigration should be encouraged and I think it should be easier for people from various backgrounds to come and contribute.
What isn't right, is that companies register huge profits (and often transfer them to tax havens) and don't share them with employees, while at the same time complaining they cannot find developers. Just pay more and you'll find plenty!
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But there are also great advantages: it's easy to find work here, it's a walkable place where there is no need to own a car (or even know how to drive), although many complain the weather is in fact very mild and it's very achievable for someone on a software engineer salary to raise a family close(ish) to the centre. Of course there's plenty of "cultural" whatnot too. I love it here and wouldn't move anywhere else.
If you are thinking about moving here, I'm happy to answer any "dumb" questions you have over email (see my profile).
But this problem arguably exists in every Western city at the moment. I have my own pet policy ideas which I won't raise here. I will say that this problem seems to be markedly worse elsewhere, for example in American cities, Australia, Canada and also even on (western half of) the continent.
EDIT: Also pollution levels
I have a nice job at my country at 2250 euros / month (which is twice the average salary) and I was asked to work for some company where I would get around 3000 euros/month.
And now it gets interesting. On interview, they will ask me various questions about my work that should theoretically be memorized by anyone comming from the school education. I have 25 years of development behind me and I dont have the "stack" to remember everything. And I am already decided to give them "fuck off" once they start with the theory.
On other side, I have a child from previous marriage and I will not leave the country for the sake of the team. Child development is more important to me.
So, I am over-competent engineer, bullied by idiotic recruiting, fixed in the position that I have, unable to relocate due to life circumstances. And now "moving to London" is a thing. Yeah right.
I don't mean to extrapolate from Internet-rant to presumed-reality, but this is a common pattern, so maybe it's worth mentioning:
I can teach a person Prolog. Any reasonable developer can teach themselves Prolog.
I cannot teach a person, nor have I ever witnessed a person self-educate on a short (employer-relevant) timescale, the willingness and propensity to work cooperatively and constructively, if it is not in their nature at interview-time.
Sometimes the latter is much more important than the former.
Negativity is infectious, and people naturally steer clear.
Also, as someone who has moved country twice (six years in Italy was the first time), I should note that this article doesn't deal with what I can only describe as general UK culture and the British character.
I would strongly advise anyone heading Britside to do what I did with Bucharest and have as long an 'exploratory' trip as you can to get a feel of the place: the way people look you in the eye (or don't); whether you sense hostility; and just the general social atmosphere. You can assess this kind of thing in a couple of weeks, usually, at least at a broad level.
As someone who gladly left, I'm obviously not the person to ask about whether you'd like living there. But it would be a good idea to stay with friends there, if possible, and scout that aspect out for yourself.
We did a winter in Nicaragua with the intention of scoping out the possibility of buying a house. It looks pretty good on paper, until you meet the grumpy expat American surfers who will be your pool of future friends and see the soulless dusty plots of building land with all the locals cleared out except one guy with a shotgun whose job is to sit the same plastic chair all day every day... yeah. Pass.
Naturally this is written from the perspective of a US expat developer with the entire world to chose from, so it’s a bit of a different situation to the one discussed in the article.
Why would you move to another country and not make friends with the (native) locals?
Maybe the grass is always greener on the other side, but I enjoy the quietness and helpfulness of the average Brit.
The only big negatives of UK culture for me are the general bad quality of produce outside of farmer's markets and the weird attachment everyone has to sash windows.
While I moved to UK, part of my family moved to Switzerland (the French part of it), and their experience with Swiss people hasn't been as rosy as mine with Brits.
YMMV.
Not to mention, there are numerous instances of people getting harassed on the train platform, or inside the train car, and no one steps up to help. They film the incident, but they don't intervene.
The way the "comment from the editor" is written ("Unfortunately, in England, higher salaries will mean higher tax rates." and "England's tax brackets can be slightly confusing") make it sound like this is not commonly how it works in other counties.
Could anyone tell me about how this differs from where you are?
"Unfortunately, in England, higher salaries will mean higher tax rates. Data released late in 2020 showed that Londoners contribute to nearly 30% of the country's capital gains tax"
??? Either the author mistakenly wrote capital gains instead of income, or they were just citing something completely irrelevant to the discussion.
Regarding the "confusing progressive tax rates", I agree with you. "Most systems around the world contain progressive aspects." [0] And a look at "tax rates around the world" shows most countries have higher marginal tax rates for higher incomes [1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_tax#Examples [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates
0-£12,570 (0%) £12,571-£50,270 (20%) £50,271-£99,999 (40%) £100,000-£125,140 (60%) £125,141-£150,000 (40%) £150,001+ (45%)
The 60% arrises because your personal allowance is reduced by £1 for every £2 you earn over £100,000 until is disappears entirely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_Kingdom...
And here's a chart to go along with it to show where people fit along the X axis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_Kingdom#/...
And even that isn't quite the whole story, because you'll also lose certain child-related benefits starting from £50K if you have kids, so your effective rate for the next £10K or so can work out much higher than 40%.
Then there are the effects of not-unusual things like pension contributions and charitable donations, which can move things around a bit more.
It's hardly a surprise that people find the system confusing!
Also if you pass a certain income threshold you're required to fill in your own tax return anyway.
For some reason this isn’t common practice. I’ve always found it weird that salaries are quoted in gross amount.
In some cases the round number may not be the “net” amount because eg maybe you have some rental income, or income from last year, moved to a new state, etc. But in most cases it’ll be pretty close.
Deleted Comment
Most people never interact with capital gains tax in their lives.
This used to be an easy way to minimise tax, although now it's a more complex calculation. And HMRC have to be persuaded that you really are freelance, and not just a long-term contractor working on-site.
There other semi-legal dodges including companies which loan you your income - minimal tax - and then for various more or less credible reasons the loan is written off and never has to be repaid. HMRC usually take a while to catch to these kinds of schemes. But short term gain can lead to long-term pain because if they're ruled unlawful HMRC can claw back tax retrospectively.
I moved out of the UK a few years ago, and while there's a lot to dislike - which is why I moved - the tax laws are fairly generous to one-person small businesses. Brexit has now massively complicated this for anyone selling internationally, but UK B2B is not so bad.
Combined with the hassle for EU citizen nowadays to get a work permit it does not sound so enticing anymore.
Though for FAANG London still seems to have a better ratio of salary to CoL than Dublin.
Or working for a bank, which is the classic high-paid London job. The pure software engineers get paid less than quants/traders (which can get astronomical comp depending on what exactly they do) but usually still very substantial.
All that combined means it's much easier / more enjoyable to do some work / read a book on your commute if you're using the bus, which for me was worth the extra journey time.
Obviously for longer journeys you still need the tube/train, but I lived fairly centrally so was able to either bus or bike 90% of the time.
It's much easier to get a remote gig, so it seems like a location will no longer be a problem.
There are plenty of well paying tech jobs outside of FAANG, but many of them are in finance.
What kid of property can you buy if you are a good software dev working at FAANG?
Housing is expensive in rough proportion to how central you are, and especially how close to tube stations you are. But it's also possible to live quite well. My commute would be a little over 1 hour each way by public transport, but I generally used a motorbike, closer to 35 minutes.
We are however leaving, in large part due to Brexit. I'm Irish, my partner is German, and neither of us wants our son to be schooled in this country. The political situation is heading in an Orban-like direction, they're locking up EU citizens at the border and the anti-EU rhetoric from leadership and tabloids is relentless.
I would not come here as an EU citizen.
I quit my job and joined Google in part because they'll relocate me to Zurich.
The only immigration system I am aware of that's more hostile is US. Obviously there are many countries I know nothing about
WOW though, "Above £60,000" salary. Despite the exchange rate, £1 pretty much buys you the same goods as $1 in the US (£5 coffee anyone?).
For such a high cost city, this pay sounds atrocious. You could live in SF and make literally triple that easily. Plus the taxes are super high in London too.
I don't really buy the idea that having the NHS makes this all worth it either. Working in California you can get an employer health plan (Kaiser, etc) for $50 a month pre-tax that is in fact better in quality (no wait times, no need to get referrals to see any kind of doctor you want) than the NHS and never have to pay more than a $20 copay for any service.
It sounds like a super fun life experience, money isn't everything, I would absolutely love to do this but I don't know how I could ever justify cutting my pay from 350k -> 115k AND paying super high tax just to live in a specific city.
You could argue this is why companies in the UK are recruiting from lower cost countries - because they don’t compete with higher cost countries in terms of compensation.
Tons of relatively unknown companies making 100mln per year, paying 100k for seniors (usually stock comp is worthless though, that's how fang engineers make their money).
Personally I've always avoided fangs because of politics and having to commute in the office (which also means I could move outside of London).
It's not USA salaries but you get cheaper healthcare, more holidays, you can make some decent living and the extra freedom is welcome if you have a family or if you want to have a rich social life.
The rest of the article seems quite on point, but that rent, I just can't quite put my finger on it.
There is no way you're getting a 2 bedroom for anywhere near that. It's not even in the right ballpark.
What you could afford for £1300 is a 1 bedroom, at a fair distance from central, thanks to the sharp drop in rent from coronavirus last year.
I'm certainly curious to know what he is renting. Either he's not living in London or I missed a second wave of rent drop from coronavirus.
Don't get me wrong - immigration should be encouraged and I think it should be easier for people from various backgrounds to come and contribute.
What isn't right, is that companies register huge profits (and often transfer them to tax havens) and don't share them with employees, while at the same time complaining they cannot find developers. Just pay more and you'll find plenty!
This is going to be even more relevant in a post covid world, after companies realise outsourcing can be viable.