( Why do you ask, are you thinking of going into software development? )

People in the UK hate to talk about salary, so I can only give my perspective (Not London, but close enough to have a pint cost £4). I can't be more detailed because there's probably something in my contract about not disclosing salary:

It really depends, but starting salaries for developers are just not great from my experience, but it can get better as you skill up.

I'm now just outside London and I'm a senior[1] developer and earning probably less than I previously might have thought a senior developer should be paid, but this is still much better than a junior. My first (non-developer, skilled in maths) job started at 18k, although quickly rose to 24k. My first developer job was 30k, although I had shown in the previous job a skill for programming so this wasn't really a junior role, junior developer roles are typically closer to the £25k mark I think.

Developers do better than average (the UK median fulltime wage is £26,500) but they're nowhere near the top of the salaried employees list, they earn less than a lot of other professional roles, they don't come close to chartered accountants, lawyers, or many tradespeople.

But it's an easy job, the hours aren't long, there's little to no overtime culture and the job itself is intellectually rewarding. There's few health risks and almost no chance of dying on the job. Yes, RSI & eye-strain risk are elevated, a sedentary lifestyle isn't wonderful, but overall developers have it good.

People don't necessarily understand what coders do. This is worth getting used to, most programming jobs aren't in software houses but as part of small software teams inside larger businesses. People often see programming as as kind of magic, but a little bit of education (just talking to people) and a bit of just accepting that's how it is and it's a job that has good exposure much of the wider business so you get a good chance to see inside a lot of industry niches while still having a huge amount of transferable skill. You won't ever think "I can't possibly accept that Java job, it's in the Mining industry, I only have Telecomms Java experience!", whereas other job roles can find themselves too narrowly specialised in an industry.

I think if I were more of a risk taker I'd try to eventually go freelance, since there can be more money there, but my networking skills aren't great, and my appetite for risk is low.

I've only been doing software development professionally for a few years: I did other maths based work before that which was worse paid and far more difficult, I used to write programs to do the job which is how I realised I was in the wrong profession. I sometimes think I might get bored with software eventually at which point I'll likely transition into penetration testing, it seems to be what I like to do and I generally end up doing a lot of that kind of stuff at any company I'm at, since it seems to be way off the radar of most developers. They hate to consider "Can user input end up here" and "If user input were malicious what problems could it cause". I think it's important to always have some kind of long-term aim to get out of "just" software development.

I have no doubt that spending a whole life at a "developer / senior developer" level in the UK probably isn't healthy as far as salary goes. While there probably are some industries where a senior developer will be paid an end-salary similar to other professions, from what I've seen at most SMEs[2] it pays more to transition to senior management or giving up on a salary and moving into consultancy. I think development is also a career which demands keeping up with a very rapidly changing landscape which is fine for young people but learning at pace becomes more difficult as people get older. This isn't ageist, I am not saying that old people can't learn and I'm certainly not saying they are not valuable, their experience is extremely valuable and many will have learnt all the skills they require, just that the pace of extreme rapid shifts in learning is slower. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, if you switched every time a new js framework was announced you'd never get anything done, but there is a cost if you actually do decide it's time to migrate.

As an aside, spending too long reading HN about Silicon Valley wages makes me a bit jealous sometimes but then again I think about the overtime, which could lead to stress and then perhaps lead to losing the job and then the last place I'd want to be both unemployed and ill is the United States of America.

tldr; Don't go into software development for the money, but if it's a job you find easy and enjoy doing, then it pays well compared to many similar jobs. If you're chasing money but want to remain salaried look to become a chartered accountant.

[1] Although I'll admit I have a little less responsibility than some senior developer roles at other companies, as we have another developer role above senior developer.

[2] Small to Medium enterprises, in case that's a term not familiar.