Is £360k the new baseline for UK software engineers?
At an event in London hosted by a US Venture Capital firm, VC associates asked me if this figure is becoming standard. While headlines from outlier firms like Anthropic, OpenAI or Jack & Jill make it seem that way, the reality on the ground is very different.
Saying £360k is the norm is like using Erling Haaland’s £27m salary as the benchmark for every top-flight footballer. It ignores the vast spectrum of the market.
The vast spectrum of the market
Frontier AI Engineers (Top 1%): Headline-grabbing packages £360K plus life changing equity and bonus
Senior / Experienced UK based Engineers: £100k – £200k (driven by stack, domain expertise, and scale)
High-Potential Other Engineers: £60k+ to £100K
The challenge right now
The challenge right now? companies assume they must offer frontier-level pay just to compete.
They dont.
Outside the headline bubble
Outside the headline bubble—and across key UK hubs like Edinburgh, Manchester, Oxford, Cambridge and Bristol—there is a deep pool of exceptional talent eager to join fast-growing scaleups without unrealistic price tags, also there are exceptional London based software engineers working in traditional sectors that would provide excellent value.
Are compensation floors shifting?
Or do you think compensation floors are genuinely shifting at all companies and sectors, it doesn’t seem that way.