London Salaries?
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- randomname
Are London / UK salaries generally higher than US and other countries in Europe?
Just got back from there and everything was so expensive. I would be broke on my current salary.
- Continuity0
London salaries are some of the least-predictable I've seen in the industry. I've seen some job adverts for senior designers in London, with a salary of £55,000/pa and recently saw an advert calling for an art director at £38,000 to £45,000/pa, DOE. No logic there at all.
- All of this to say that £45k seems to be the threshold of where life starts to get a bit more comfortable in London.Continuity
- animatedgif0
Probably not, we just get fucking raped from every angle.
And spend a fortune on rent in London when scum can live in council housing right across the street and afford to shit out kids and dogs till the end of time.
- Continuity0
I'm dying to know how you Londoners do it, though; I mean, what's the net take-home on £45k? I remember looking at flat listings in the windows of estate agents last year in Shoreditch, Hackney, Clerkenwell, Islington and Kilburn, and _rarely_ would I see any flat available for less than 275/wk, general nothing included. Surely one can't afford to live alone without flatmates in Zone 1 or even Zone 2 on 45k per year?
- detritus0
I often forget about the currency conversion and feel a knot brewing in my somtach when I see 6 figure sums for American jobs.
I'd suggest £35k+ being the point where London becomes comfortable, but then again, that depends upon your lifestyle and responsibilities... I don't have kids or a mortgage (though a mortgage'd be cheaper, no doubt) and live a fundamentally boring lifestyle, now that I'm old and Calvinist and guilt-ridden every time I put my hand in my pocket to spend money on flippancies.
(I'm not one of those dirty old men who masturbate themselves throug their pockets in public, less than discreetly. Not yet).
- er.. that last line made more sense before I qualified the end of the second paragraph.detritus
- Now it comes across as some kind of over-guilty unconfession.detritus
- You DO aspire to pocket-wanking, though, don't you?Continuity
- that's not a bad idea, not thought of that one.set
- the wanking secretly in your pocket thing, I mean.set
- flashbender0
you can live comfortably on your own in zone 2tube for 45K. There are plenty of places in kilburn for less than 250. mostly studios though.
the closer you are to a tube station/the further you are from council housing the cheaper it gets... but council housing is never too far away
- flashbender0
and yes, the salaries are completely random:
Digital Art Director London W1 Up to £60K
vs.
Art Director, Integrated, London, £35K- Isn't this just because the term 'Art Director' has become wholly diluted this last decade?detritus
- Art Director can mean anything these days. It's no longer attained through experience hierarchy.orrinward
- yes. THanks in part to kids coming straight from uni and calling themselves art directors.flashbender
- Horp0
60k is the absolute baseline for comfortable living in London IMHO, but then it depends on your mores I guess. For me, comfortable living would be a W1 residence, shopping in Waitrose, eating out at least once a week, two nights out, and the ability to own nice clothes and drive a decentish car.
You wont get that out of 60k mind you, but you'd get something better than a studio flat or share in Kilburn.
- I'd want to be one of those W1/Waitrose types, but I wouldn't need the car, I'm fine with public transport.Continuity
- flashbender0
I will say that the Camden side of Kilburn (south east - where it borders westminster/St. John Woods) is rather nice and not super expensive.
- goldieboy0
You can live well in London on less than 60k. You'll need a min 40k, any less and you'll struggle for zones 1 > 2.
- orrinward0
I got by fine in Zone 1 for under 20k for a year. I wasn't that conservative either.
- when? back in 2001 when you were 12 or soemthing? ;)goldieboy
- I was probably 13 in 2001. Last year. Lived in a nice new 4th floor flat on Cheshire Street. When I went out I went out on friends' lists and...orrinward
- friends lists, and there are loads of cheap, fun things to do in London. I didn't feel like I was held back at all.orrinward
- define 'fine'isakosmo
- that was 2010 dude.Projectile
- oh hiya neighbour, i used to live on st matthews row... :)isakosmo
- I'd eat out at lunch 5 days a week and eat out in the evening probably 1.5 times a week.orrinward
- Only busting your chops orrin. It's possible to have fun without busting the bankgoldieboy
- Projectile0
Yeah I live in Zone 2 and pay £350 pcm if I include rates/internet/other bills ...but it took a LOT of househunting.
I reckon the money I've always saved on being able to cycle everywhere makes up for the extra cost of zone 2. And it's a lot quicker and more enjoyable
- You're South African, so there's about 20 of you in a 'one bed'! Hahahagoldieboy
- Yeah, him and 19 ladies though...orrinward
- In his dreams!goldieboy
- 350 is f'ing crazy!flashbender
- Horp0
Fuck, I tell you what... listening to you lot discuss this really makes me realise how much things have changed. Design just doesn't deliver the high life no more it seems. Some of these salaries you're discussing now are what I got as a senior in the mid-nineties. Salaries are meant to go up over time, so in real terms, just maintaining the same level, they seem to have gone down quite dramatically against the cost of living.
- Continuity0
^ True, this. The industry as a whole is being de-valued by a combination of economic climate (the 'do more with less' mentality) which leads to abominations like crowdsourcing and 'contests', kids coming out of uni and basically making themselves more senior than they actually, and kids in basement with a cracked version of PS calling themselves designers and charging ridiculously low fees.
Beh. It's all pretty grim.
- clearThoughts0
You should have a think about what value traditional 'design' has, from a business point of view.
It is almost a luxury.So you better be fucking good at it if you expect to get a good salary out of it.
- clearThoughts0
And London is by far the most overrated city in terms of living standards...
What you pay for what you get is IN-SANE.
Food/ Housing/ Transport from my eyes it is pretty much a third world country now.
The only difference is that the government is keeping the scum out of the street with our tax money...- Clear thoughts, eh?detritus
- 3rd world? You must be living and eating in the wrong places.goldieboy
- much of London'd food is 3rd world - that's what makes it good. Also, what a load of shit.Fax_Benson
- Dude I don't care about 3rd word.... what I am saying is that food is better probably anywhere else other than here. and what you pay for???clearThoughts
- but you're wrong. The food here can be amazing, as in any city. But, also crap, as in any city...goldieboy
- I'm talking about all budgets toogoldieboy
- clearThoughts0
*Sorry about the rant
- Rant away, good sir.Continuity
- Not sure that London is high up any ’Living Standards’ index, a problem acknowledged by Boris 'himselfdetritus
- ..it does, however, offer a fuckload by way of opportunity and experience, so.. *shrugs*detritus
- _niko0
Name: James
Job Title: Sr. Web Designer and partner
Location: Tottenham
Salary/Income: £190/year and some company benefits
- Horp0
"^ True, this. The industry as a whole is being de-valued"
I came out of college at that point where the amount of designers was still quite small, it was still considered a worthwhile business investment, and there were only a handful of top class set ups you could go to. I remember though, even back then, that it was suddenly seeming 'not so cool' to be doing design amopngst the next generation. Aside from 'multimedia', all the kids were going to college to do 'media studies'. It seemed absurd and ridiculous at the time. Almost like a no-brain activity. Just 'studying media', not creating media, or sculpting the cultural landscape, or building something new, just 'looking at what was there, and passing critical comment on it'.
Oh, how we all laughed as we watched all those saps raving about 'meeja studies'. Such a pointless activity. Now though, the era of creativity as an entity in itself is dead. All the money now is in analysis, and analysis has become the creative material. Academic understanding is the new creativity, and I think that shift goes some way towards explaining the recent obsession with infographics. It was almost like designers were trying to re-engineer what they did, to fit in with the new epoch.
I wonder what will follow on from the analytical era though.
- I say this as someone who fairly recently jumped from the sinking ship of Creativity onto a rickety boat called Analysis.Horp
- toodee0
What's analysis? I want to jump on the bandwagon!
- monoboy0
I started in London on a junior's salary of 14K (2001), shared a house with a bunch of Kiwis in Brixton, £400 a month If I remember. Survived on leftovers from client meetings.Still had a good time. But my salary went up pretty quickly.
Depends on how big a ponce you are.