US is best place to be a software engineer, salary survey finds
- Reference: 1647955809
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/03/22/software_salary_survey/
- Source link:
The report, from gamified programming outfit [1]Codingame , was culled from its community of two million developers (along with tech recruiters) and showed that the US remained the top-paying country for software engineers, with an average annual salary of $95,879.
Furthermore, more than 40 percent of developers working in the US raked in over $100k a year and 5 percent pull in more than $200k per annum, according to the report.
[2]
Close behind was Switzerland, with a $90,462 average salary, Canada was at $71,193, while UK techies trailed in fourth, with an average salary of $68,664. Still nothing to be sneezed at, but quite some way behind the US.
[3]
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It could be worse. Germany came in at sixth place with $61,390. France was down at ninth with $47,617, and Spain rounded out the top 10 with an average salary of $39,459 for software engineers.
Before anyone feels too hard done by, software engineers in India, Morocco, and Tunisia were at the bottom of the table, with averages of $19,553, $18,318, and $16,796 respectively.
[5]JavaScript survey: Most use React but satisfaction low
[6]Working in Arm's engineering team? You're probably happy with your pay rise
[7]£42k for a top-class software engineer? It's no wonder uni research teams can't recruit
[8]Stack Overflow survey: Microsoft IDEs dominate, GCP and Azure battle behind AWS
The survey did not take into account the cost of living in the countries featured in the league table (comparing the cost of a house in San Francisco with one in Pune would provide more context), nor did it break down the numbers into what languages paid the best. It did, however, tell us that the average it cited was the mean rather than median.
A glance at the [9]Stack Overflow survey for 2021 shows that Clojure is a high-paying language, DynamoDB engineers are making the big bucks, while AWS is just beating Azure on salary for cloud experts.
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Still, while UK coders may not be the highest salaried in the world, the average salary has comfortably broken through the £50k ($66,300) barrier and remains higher than the [11]national average . After Switzerland, Brits also pocket the most cash compared to their European equivalents.
Is that enough to stop techies in search of a better deal jumping through [12]the hoops set by certain companies ? Well, we are in the midst of the Great Resignation after all... ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.codingame.com/start
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YjoAxAZehbzVq4EFNR7TDAAAAQg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YjoAxAZehbzVq4EFNR7TDAAAAQg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YjoAxAZehbzVq4EFNR7TDAAAAQg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/22/javascript_survey/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/03/arm_staff_get_pay_rise/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/16/academia_underfunding_software_engineers/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/03/stackoverflow_developer_survey/
[9] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2021#top-paying-technologies-programming-scripting-and-markup-languages
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YjoAxAZehbzVq4EFNR7TDAAAAQg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/annualsurveyofhoursandearnings/2021
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/21/interview_questionnaire/
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
And if one of the nutters does make it out of the US then at least getting yourself repaired won't bankrupt you...
If you can find a hospital bed, that is. If you do get a bed you'll be laying there thinking of the poor chap whose scheduled surgery got bumped (again) and hope he doesn't perish in the meantime.
96K doesn't sound that high
Does it include medical insurance and a decent number of holidays, because if not you'd probably be better working in the EU, plus you don't get to be exposed to some of the insanity in the US
Re: 96K doesn't sound that high
Averages don't tell the whole story.
There is a lot of difference between a developer at a silicon valley FAANG / Wall St bank and doing reports at a supermarket in Arkansas
The industry is also very steeply curved. There are a lot of new graduates, fewer higher paid 5year staff, much fewer very well paid 10 year developers and a very few very very well paid 20+ year experts
Re: 96K doesn't sound that high
On the other hand this is a self report "survey" by a games site - so it's a complete consignment of geriatric shoemakers
Re: 96K doesn't sound that high
Also it depends on net/gross salary, and what the difference between the two are, and what expenses (i.e. health insurance) and other features (i.e. paid medical leave/holidays, paid overtime, etc.) are included or not.
Re: 96K doesn't sound that high
Depending on the state, lower tax rates in the states go some of the way to compensating for significantly higher healthcare costs in the US. But the main incentive in the US remains stock options which let people dream of retiring when Unicorn™ goes public in five years. During which time they're prepared to put in oodles of unpaid overtime, forego holidays right until the pink slip arrives…
BUT.......
..................who would live in a s hole like Canada?
Re: BUT.......
You want maybe we send all the Canada geese to you ?
Re: BUT.......
Careful. We'll cut off your Timbits and maple syrup supplies. :P
US is best place to be a software engineer ...
... except when you have to dodge the bullets, and then go bankrupt with the Hospital Bills if you fail to do so.
Erm...
I think I'll stay on this side of the pond with my 29 days per year holiday (plus bank holidays, of course).
Once you've got enough to get by, time becomes far more precious than money.
There's more to the "best place" than salary; Canada has a lot of social advantages to the US, not the least of which is the fact you don't have to be paranoid about nutbars running around with guns because they want a "fix."