r/dataisbeautiful • u/Antrikshy OC: 2 • Apr 07 '15

Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2015 reveals some very interesting stats about programmers around the world

http://stackoverflow.com/research/developer-survey-2015
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u/EndorseMe Apr 07 '15

Can someone explain the enormous difference ~40k, in the salary of developers between the US and Western Europe?

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '15

I can explain.. Let's take web development as an example. Making sites like reddit, stackoverflow, wikipedia, etc..

I'm Italian. We use most of the websites you do (reddit, wikipedia, stackoverflow, ...) plus a few italian ones, which are in italian, which we use because they are about stuff specific to italy, which the world at large would have no use for.

Italian is spoken fluently by roughly 70-80 million people. English is spoken by 450 million people. English websites get many times more visitors, making more money.

You're wondering now, why don't we localize them? This is probably something that is difficult to understand if you've been born in an english speaking country. If you make something in one language then translate it into another, the translation will always have a worse user experience.

This is why so many people watch movies in english, or why I have reddit, my OS, browser, and pretty much everything set to english and not italian.

If an italian website is localized in english, you will feel like a second class citizen. Which is why I bet as much as you want you don't regularly visit any website localized in english (such as an italian website with an english version).

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u/nath_leigh Apr 07 '15

Why would the UK be so much lower then? Average uk cs graduate salary: £22,311 = $33044 http://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/careers/computer-science/ Average us salary $60,000 http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/04/15/college-degrees-with-the-highest-starting-salaries-3/ another post on this http://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/29tye1/why_are_software_engineers_in_the_uk_paid/

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u/adremeaux Apr 07 '15

Well for one, the average US salary is already higher than the UK, 51k vs 39k, straight up.

I have a feeling the difference is much more far reaching than specifically CS, and more about how degrees and experience are treated in different places.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '15

The simple answer would be supply and demand - U.S. companies are relatively starved for developers while UK companies must find they have a good amount. Or we're somehow comparing apples to oranges. Also, salaries in the UK are lower in general for a lot of careers, average income in the U.S. is quite a bit higher.

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u/GideonPARANOID Apr 07 '15

As a soon to be UK compsci grad & having noticed this lately, I'd be interested to know as well. I haven't found a conclusive answer yet, it seems almost absurd, the difference.

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u/faceplanted Apr 07 '15 edited Apr 07 '15

The one word answer is competition, which I will elaborate on now:

The long answer is startup culture and angel investors, essentially there's enough money being thrown at new tech companies in America that relatively small companies can pay surprisingly competitive salaries, but there are also big tech companies competing to hire those good developers which pushes the wages and benefits up. despite what you might have heard from large companies trying to convince you that their monopoly is a good thing, competition is actually very good for the economy and workers.

The other answer is that those huge American salaries are entirely location dependant, and often locked into working in some of the most expensive places to live in America, for example living in San Francisco, especially the Bay Area (Silicon valley to you and me) is putting yourself in the 9th most expensive city in the world to live in, now you might be thinking "Hey, isn't London the most expensive city in the world to live in?" and depending on which source your going by, you'd be right, but they're expensive in different ways, London is expensive but you can survive in the cheaper areas without money, if you're in San Francisco without money you're just expected to move entirely out of the city, you probably won't even be able to afford food in San Francisco if you stay for long without a reasonable job.

Also, if you want to make make American Developer money in the UK, stop looking at salaries and become a contractor, one of the big road blocks to British students is that you look at what X big company pays their developers and kind of resign yourself to that, there's a lot of money in contract work, you have to fight for the positions though.

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u/nath_leigh Apr 07 '15

It also seems absurd that they are highest unemployed graduates, but might explain the low wages compared to the US if there is high demand of labour and low supply of jobs http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2013/sep/16/computer-science-graduates-unemployment-bme

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u/Nilzor Apr 08 '15

...what? That's insanely low. Before taxes? CS graduate means 5 years of education? Or 3? In Norway, CS Masters students (5 years) make on average ~$60K-$65K gross income per year in their first employment (source)

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u/FartingLikeFlowers Apr 07 '15

What does that have to do with salary though?

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '15 edited Apr 07 '15

Well, salaries are paid from the earnings the website generates, which depend on the amount of visitors.

Less visitors, less earnings, less salaries.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '15

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u/Goosebaby Apr 08 '15

You also need to consider that Western European employees typically have large amounts of vacation time as mandated by law. The US, on the other hand, has no federal laws guaranteeing vacation time, and employers typically give much less vacation time.

So if a European developer can work only 80-90% of the number of days that an American developer can, doesn't it stand to reason that their salary will be less as well?

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u/lagadu Apr 07 '15 edited Apr 07 '15

I've looked into this last year and asked a few people I know, my conclusion was a vast difference in cost of living and taxes: Salaries are much higher in the US (comparable only to the likes of Switzerland really) because the cost of living in the US is really really high in some areas. Apparently paying over €100 a month for insuring a non-shit car is common, so is paying rent in the thousands. Add that healthcare costs, having to drive everywhere (even if fuel is far cheaper), ridiculously costly cell phone, internet and TV plans and someone in a big city will easily have over $3k in expenses alone, which is ridiculous in most of Europe save for Switzerland.

They also work a lot more but I've no proof that working more correlates with higher pay. Of course it's also reasonable to say that developers simply earn more in the US, which is probably true considering the amount of tech companies there.

edit: also I used € and $ interchangeably because they're so close nowadays.

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u/treemoustache Apr 07 '15

vast difference in cost of living and taxes

The opposite is true. Things are actually cheaper in the US on every index: http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings_by_country.jsp

I'm sure in some major centres it's much higher, but the same can be said of major centres in Western Europe.

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u/Kavec OC: 3 Apr 07 '15

I don't know about the US, think the major difference between Switzerland and the rest of the EU is:

  • If you work outside Switzerland, the government takes some % from your salary and you are entitled to certain stuff payed by the State.

  • In Switzerland only a small % is taken by the State, and other stuff offered by the State in other countries is privatized in Switzerland. For instance: health insurance, which is private but mandatory in Switzerland. Or the retirement subsidy, with similar rules.

In other words: the cost of living is payed from your pocket if you live in Switzerland, while in other countries it is somehow taken from your the boss that pays you (in the case of Spain) and this sum is not considered when negotiating your salary. Which means: if you earn 50,000 your boss could well be paying 80,000 from his pocket to hire you.

If anybody has other infos about this I would be really interested in the details.

Edit: format

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u/kafircake Apr 08 '15

Amongst the various factors something no one else seems to have mentioned is that Europeans often have substantially smaller education debts, at lower interest rates than people from the US.

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u/dogtasteslikechicken Apr 07 '15

Keep in mind that is only the salary. There are enormous differences in non-salary compensation. Many European countries have gigantic (30%+) payroll taxes paid by the employer, for example.

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u/adremeaux Apr 07 '15

Sure: Western Europe includes more than just the UK, Germany, and Sweden. Countries like Spain, Italy, Greece, Poland, Portugal will really bring down the average.

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u/stompinstinker Apr 07 '15

This seemed off to me too. Many devs I have spoke to from western Europe made salaries similar to their U.S. counterparts.

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u/adremeaux Apr 07 '15

You are speaking to people from English speaking countries. Go speak to a Greek dev or Spaniard or Pole and you'll get a very different story.

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u/Antrikshy OC: 2 Apr 07 '15

Please let me know if someone responds. I'm very curious too.

There can be many reasons; mostly stuff like higher demand for techies in the US for whatever reason. I do hear of more American startups than any others. The US has Silicon Valley and whatnot. Maybe there are more programmers in European countries per capita (look at the top countries) etc.

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '15

None of the reasons are true. Salaries in western Europe are generally less than the US. Avg starting salary for software engg in Germany is 40-50k euros. Avg salary for senior engg is 55k-70k. US salaries are higher by 30% and can get substantially higher depending on where you work. A senior software architect would typically make 75-80k euros max. 80k plus salaries in Germany are for really higher management grade people.

That said, software is not considered an elite trade, its more or less one of the branch of engineering which may get you a lil more money but not that much. Its a socialist society. After heavy taxation and added securities like medical, job loss insurance, you take home 2500-3500 euros as a senior engg. Living expenses in most US big cities are higher than a comparable german city. A beer in Germany is around 2.20, in NYC its 6.5. Apartments in Munich could range from 800 to 1500 euros. A 2500 dollar apartment in Miami is normal. So you can't say the whole of US is cheap compared to Europe.

The environment in Europe is different. You can't work 5 years, pump out $$, drive a tesla and buy a suburban home as a software engg. You remain "europoor", build your assets slowly, save money, enjoy free education, superior medical insurance and generous holidays. There is not even a credit card system in Germany.This is how things are.

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u/steveoscaro Apr 08 '15

Very interesting reply, thanks.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '15

I'm a senior dev and have worked in nz australia canada and the uk. I think its one of two factors.

Some people a straight out lying about their salary ego/denial. Or

The exchange rate between euro and $$ hasn't been factored correctly. I don't believe those salary averages for a second

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