Rephrasing the Questions

[John Bridges]

On Wed, 20 Sep 2000 15:56:06 +0100 (BST), Simon Bowring wrote:

>I thought it was too high as well, but a) salaries are higher in the
>US than the UK where I am, and b) when I did a business studies course 
>(in the UK) many years ago now, the rule of thumb was that a cost of 
>an employee (including all overheads etc) was approx double their 
>salary, I suspect $75,000 is not out of the question for a programmer 
>in the US; some of our senior programmers' earnings here at MPC data
>almost begin to *approach* that vague *ball-park* (but are certainly
>not actually in it!).

Amazingly enough, what I'm doing right now is reading CVs (resumes) for
programmers to be hired in the UK (just south of London).  Although the
salaries are in general quite a bit lower compared to NYC or SJ, they are not
that far away from the salaries payed in some midwestern cities, within 20%
for medium to lower level positions.

For instance I have a couple in front of me at about 50k pounds (which was
$75,000 up until the recent drop in exchange rates).  Keep in mind that
overhead is in general higher than the USA (except for health insurance), for
instance computer equipment is 1.5x the price in the UK (the rule of thumb
seems to be one pound equals one dollar when translating prices). Higher
telephone charges, higher internet charges and so on.