Glassdoor gives the following salary numbers for Google:
London: £65000 (=$83.7k)
Mountain View (CA): $145000
Both seem a little low; I'd expect a mid-level in London to be >£75k (~$100k). Less sure on the US salary; maybe >$155k?
Neither include equity, but I imagine they scale pretty similarly.
So a London dev at Google is looking at a loss of $70k per year compared to their SV colleague.
London isn't cheap. It may not be NYC or Bay Area levels, but you can't really escape it by commuting in. You're going to be competing with everybody else trying to do that and knocking £5-6k off your post-tax income, so I don't think it really comes out as "cheaper" to try that. I was estimating needing ~£1000 per month as basic living costs (rent + public transport, but not food) in shared accommodation when I was looking to move there (in the end I didn't, but not because of anything I've said here).
Both seem a little low; I'd expect a mid-level in London to be >£75k (~$100k). Less sure on the US salary; maybe >$155k? Neither include equity, but I imagine they scale pretty similarly.
So a London dev at Google is looking at a loss of $70k per year compared to their SV colleague.
London isn't cheap. It may not be NYC or Bay Area levels, but you can't really escape it by commuting in. You're going to be competing with everybody else trying to do that and knocking £5-6k off your post-tax income, so I don't think it really comes out as "cheaper" to try that. I was estimating needing ~£1000 per month as basic living costs (rent + public transport, but not food) in shared accommodation when I was looking to move there (in the end I didn't, but not because of anything I've said here).
Edit: Fix bad maths in comparison