London, UK - Jobs/Salaries

I'm doing a quick google search for jobs in the UK and the appear to be severely low compared to the US. Example for a Senior Voice Engineer (Consultant or Lead) - CCNP R&S/CCNP Voice the going rate in the states is around $125-160K. I was thinking the UK would offer a minimum of 100K in British Pounds. So far I'm seeing 35-50K BP.

Am I right on this assumption? Am asking because ideally I'd like a position with a global company that can provide direct placement in the UK.

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Comments

sieff

jibbajabba wrote: »

If that is the case then the OP clearly is a techy hot shot as they could get locals a lot cheaper.

@jibbajabba Hey ... I'm not a tech hot shot or anything, but in the instance of the job that got offered to me at £100K was because I built the companies global VoIP infrastructure as a Cisco consultant. Their network extended from Spain, Italy, UK and several locations in the US. It was a multi-cluster Cisco voice, QoS and WAN deployment. So after the 6-9 month engagement was up - they were thinking that they had no one on-staff to maintain it and they didn't want to hire a managed service company. So discretely they asked what it would take to get me onboard... Anyways, the company had a merger and the offer got lost in the shuffle - I've since tried other approaches to getting to the UK, but was disappointed with some of the salaries I see listed.

So no, I'm not a hotshot - but I do have a consulting background and I have hundreds of references for large-scale deployments. Because of this I don't think its unreasonable to get £100K plus in the UK. Compared to what my US company charges per hour for Data Center moves and VoIP consulting, etc... I think getting someone experienced to do the work in-house is pretty cost effective. Even at £150K a year.

deth1k

I think you should look at current salaries being offered to CCIE's even Voice for comparison. No one permanent is earning anywhere near close or over £100K. For that sort of money they are expecting someone who has knowledge of, or certified to CCIE/CISSP/MCSE/VCP and so on. I wouldn't have high expectations as you here in UK / London.

gorebrush

jibbajabba wrote: »

Cost of living is probably a major factor. Although Wales (using Cardiff as comparison) isn't cheap either I think.

At least your meds are free of charge

Haha, yes that is true. I live about 20 minutes west of Cardiff, so cost of living cheaper again.

jibbajabba

Sieff, if you can get £100-£150k here in London then kudos. Even with your experience nobody in the UK earns that sort of money unless you are pencil pushing executive at C-Level. I am not saying I don't believe you. All I am saying is that you need to make sure that the numbers in your contract have a £ in front and not a $. If that is the case then I can tell you that you'd be the best paid techy in the whole UK with about 60-75% above average pay - so well done.

razar

jibbajabba wrote: »

Sieff, if you can get £100-£150k here in London then kudos. Even with your experience nobody in the UK earns that sort of money unless you are pencil pushing executive at C-Level. I am not saying I don't believe you. All I am saying is that you need to make sure that the numbers in your contract have a £ in front and not a $. If that is the case then I can tell you that you'd be the best paid techy in the whole UK with about 60-75% above average pay - so well done.

I agree with this, most of the top end engineer/tech roles will pay £70-£80k maybe, so you'll be doing great if you can land one of those jobs. I have seen tech roles paying £90k-£100k but it is quite rare. Maybe consultant or pre-sales roles might take you up to that mark with bonus but usually not base salary.

jibbajabba

razar wrote: »

I agree with this, most of the top end engineer/tech roles will pay £70-£80k maybe

At a push ..

Speaking of CCIE / Cisco .. Here an example ... Central London .. pretty average salary ...

razar

jibbajabba wrote: »

At a push ..

Speaking of CCIE / Cisco .. Here an example ... Central London .. pretty average salary ...

Yea i'd say that's pretty much what you're likely to see, and they no doubt want to pay £62k as opposed to £72k. Also there doesn't seem to be many networking jobs at the moment for all levels ccna/p/ie etc. Compared to last year when I was looking there used to be 10-15 new ccna/p jobs coming up every day. Now it seems like there are about 3-4 new jobs. Just talking about perm roles here.

When I see jobs like that it makes me feel like i'm a looooong way off from where I want to be.

jibbajabba

And many of those jobs aren't even real. Back in the day there were tons of contract jobs available ... the ones I now found turn out to be either fake or have so many applicants that agencies don't even bother replying.

I finally got out of London .. well as of next Tuesday .. and start a role in Welwyn Garden City .. less money but cheaper commute. Technically shorter commute but it really isn't due to changes of train and walking required from the station on the other side.

razar

Nice, what will you be doing?

And also agree about the fake jobs, I see JAM recruitment advertising the same jobs now as when I was looking for a new job this time next year.

Also been checking out the contract market and that seems to be really dried up right now.

jibbajabba

Can't say publicly .. but I agree with Jam .. what a bunch of ... Never went anywhere ... Same with Connections / Computerfutures / computerpeople and the lot ..

razar

Cool, good luck anyway. WGC is not too far from me and there does seem to be quite a few jobs in that area for some reason. Yes I've had a lot of issues with agencies down the years. Difficult to find good ones as a lot of them are just fishing for information.

Did get a job once with Computerpeople about 5 years ago now though but that was a rare positive experience with them.