San Francisco engineer: $400k. London engineer, same calibre: £120k to £200K. And we’re wondering why London is attractive to US tech companies?
Sure we can debate if the quality is exactly the same, but the quality and experience is exceptionally high in the UK for a lower salary than paid in NY or San Fran.
Not an isolated move
You’ve maybe seen the news already that Replit, the $9bn US AI coding startup, just picked London for its first international office. It’s not an isolated move.
Over the last 18 months, OpenAI, Anthropic, Databricks, Palantir Technologies and Scale AI have all announced serious expansion plans here, on top of the Google, Meta and Apple offices that were already firmly planted. The count of major US scaleups and Big Tech firms setting up in London is expected to top 80 very soon.
Add to that the fact that £14.4 billion in AI-related investment has landed in the UK this year, with over £10 billion of it concentrated in London and it’s been propelled almost entirely by late-stage US mega-funds Sequoia Capital , Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed backing European scaleups, mostly Software, Fintech, LegalTech, Climatetech, Healthtech and BioTech.
So why London?
The UK’s talent pool in cutting-edge tech is second only to Silicon Valley, but at a fraction of the cost.
A senior ML engineer or staff software engineer in San Francisco or New York commands $350k-$500k+ total comp. In London, that same calibre of talent - often out of the exceptional educational hubs of University of Cambridge , University of Oxford or Imperial College London- commands £120k-£200k.
Not just Engineering, across Leadership hires VP and C Suite the cost difference can be huge.
That’s a huge labour discount. Which means longer runway, or twice the engineering headcount per dollar raised. Either way, it’s a very easy decision for a US board to make.
The London AI hub
Then there’s geography. King’s Cross is rapidly becoming the London AI hub.. That kind of density breeds talent mobility fast, because people don’t need to change cities to change companies they only have to walk down the road.
Will we see salary inflation?
Salaries gave been mostly flat for a long time in London, Leading me to ask whether we will see salary inflation over the next year? What are your thoughts? .
Get in touch
If you’re hiring senior tech talent in London right now, or wondering what the market’s actually paying, DM me, always happy to talk it through.