August 10, 2017 at 10:00Where is the developer best to live and work
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Alyona Lazareva, freelance editor, translated Benjamin Martin's article on cities in which the best salaries await developers for the Netology blog .
Where is the best place to look for a job for a developer? In New York? San Francisco?
Judging by the level of wages, Silicon Valley is a clear winner - the average annual income for a developer there is $ 110,554 , according to Glassdoor. But the cost of renting in the San Francisco Bay area is so high that not all developers can afford to rent housing there.
But where to look for work, if not in the Valley? For a more complete analysis, we compared the real income of software engineers in 43 cities around the world and found where they can earn the most. To do this, we used a simple formula:
Real income = Average salary - Taxes - Social security - Cost of living - Rent
If you don’t have time to read the whole article, here are the conclusions we came to:
Seattle is a clear winner, the salary there is close to that offered in Silicon Valley, and the rent is much lower. In general, with some exceptions in the United States, the results are better than outside. Interestingly, in the ranking of US cities, San Jose ranks 3rd out of 21, while San Francisco is only 19th. The rent difference is to blame.
On the East Coast, in New York and Washington (DC), things are even worse - they occupy the last two places, respectively. Phoenix is in second place, with Austin and Houston finishing the top five. If you look at the international rating, we advise you to pay attention to Tel Aviv, major cities in Canada and Berlin. But in London, Singapore and China, everything is not as good as we expected.
Earlier we read an article on the Glassdoor portal " 25 cities with the best salaries for programmers ." In their ranking, San Jose is in second place, and San Francisco is third. Glassdoor believes that San Jose has a higher cost of living than San Francisco. Our data suggest otherwise.
Let's take a closer look at their formula:
Scaled income = ((average cost of living) / (actual cost of living)) * Basic income
Comparing life in different cities in this way seemed to us not quite correct. People just want to know how much money they have left by the end of the year.
Therefore, we have compiled our own formula for determining real income. We took the earnings of an average development engineer who lives alone in the city center, and used this as an indicator for ranking. This leads to completely different results.
Real income = Average salary - Taxes - Social security - Cost of living - Rent
Do not forget that a significant part of the salary goes to pay taxes, the amount of which varies depending on the region of residence. Therefore, in our calculations, we used the base salary for each city according to Glassdoor, calculated the amount that remained after tax, and then subtracted the cost of living from itand rental costs. To make it easier for you to understand how demanded your specialty is in different cities of the USA and around the world, we have calculated the number of vacancies now open.
Most indicators in America and other countries are markedly different. Therefore, it seemed to us that comparing them is not entirely correct, and we compiled two ratings: one for cities in the United States, and the second for everyone else.
Many believe that such a modest salary outside the United States is offset by the relatively low cost of living. But even considering this, salaries in other countries still cannot compete with salaries in the USA.
Our research suggests that Seattle is the best place for developers. Thanks to companies such as Amazon and Microsoft, the average salary almost reaches Silicon Valley, and lower rental costs mean more money saved each month.
If you are planning a move, then Phoenix, Austin and Houston are an excellent choice, the real income there is above $ 30,000. However, these markets are still growing and there are not so many vacancies as cities at the end of the list. Raleigh (North Carolina) is slightly inferior to Houston, but again, the labor market there is currently relatively small.
Above, we have already drawn your attention to the difference in real profits in San Jose and San Francisco. Cities are located close to each other - in the San Francisco Bay area, the market situation is also very similar, so why do we see such a big difference in real income? Our data shows that the salary and cost of living are almost identical, it's all about an expensive rental in San Francisco.
The spread of daily expenses is not so large, in contrast to the rental rate. In our ranking of US cities, Phoenix is on the third line, where the average cost of renting a one-bedroom apartment will cost you $ 972 per month. In San Francisco, you can rent a similar apartment for $ 3272, so it is only in 19th place.
Outside the San Francisco Bay Area, the most active labor market for developers is now developing in Washington, New York and Boston, but because of the high rents, they go to the bottom of our list. In Washington, at the moment, most of the vacancies are open. But the high cost of living and low average salary make us admit: Washington is not the best choice of all the cities of America.
We also decided to find out what is happening in other countries.
For comparison, we chose cities in which there are already or are emerging technology parks.
Oslo tops the list in terms of profit, but we have not mentioned it before, since the labor market there is the smallest of the 43 cities. Evaluate your chances soberly: only 106 vacancies are currently open in Oslo, and, for example, in New York - 22,554.
We think that it would be better to look at Tel Aviv, which is on the second line of our rating. There is a large industrial park, and the labor market in Tel Aviv looks quite good. In addition, there is a system of tax benefits for recently arrived in the country, which we did not take into account in our calculations.
Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are 3rd, 4th and 5th on our list of real income. There are more open vacancies in each of them than in Tel Aviv. The sixth place on the list is in Berlin, which houses one of Europe's largest technology parks. Bangalore deserves special mention - there you will find the largest number of vacancies and a very, very small real income.
London's real income is below the world average and much lower than in the United States. Another city that may surprise you is Beijing. Many admire technological innovations and the special conditions for local startups to enter the domestic market, but if we talk about salaries, there are better options.
In Singapore and Hong Kong your real income will be close to zero, and in Warsaw and Moscow even lower, we even awarded these cities negative values. This means that there a programmer with an average salary cannot afford to rent housing in the city center.
We also calculated the rate of return for cities outside the United States: income after tax was divided by expenses, and then indexed to a similar result for San Francisco. Thus, in San Francisco, the coefficient will be 100, and a value of 150 in another city will mean that living there is 50% more profitable than in San Francisco.
X = (After-tax income / expense)
City profitability ratio A = 100 * (X city A / (X San Francisco)
The results obtained for the most part repeat the schedule with real income. The most interesting in this case is the comparison of San Francisco and cities outside America. Most US cities have a coefficient value of over one hundred, and about half of non-US cities have a lower rate.
We understand that when choosing a city for work and life, you are not only interested in financial indicators. Therefore, we decided to see which cities will have the highest quality of life index. As a basis, we took the Numbeo Quality of Life Index, which is based on several factors:
For this comparison, we decided not to be limited to the cities of America, but to make a global rating. Baltimore and Detroit did not fall into it, since we did not have enough data to calculate the indices of these cities.
The top ten cities in terms of quality of life included Melbourne and another 9 American cities. However, outside of America, everything is not so bad - 13 out of 22 cities bypass New York. Remember these results: we don’t think that you want to live in a city with poor ecology.
In our calculations, we assumed that we are talking about a development engineer who lives alone and receives an average salary for a given city. Your personal "real incomes" can differ greatly from those that we calculated - depending on the position, marital status and life situation.
Secondly, we are not professionals in the field of taxation, and, perhaps, we made a mistake somewhere. Having done this work, we began to respect accountants more - the international tax code is quite tedious. We assume that you are a resident of the country throughout the tax year. To get the amount of real income, we deducted income tax, local social insurance payments and compulsory insurance premiums. Also, we did not consider the situation in which you are subject to double taxation (this is possible if you simultaneously pay taxes in your homeland and in the country of temporary residence).
Thirdly, some discrepancies may arise due to sources in which we took data for comparison. Glassdoor Salary & Vacancy Data, the cost of living and rent is from Numbeo , and tax calculations are from the IRS and KPMG . It is noteworthy that in cities outside America there was less data on the level of salaries, so in some cases we used other sources. For example, we used Chinese sites to search for data in Beijing and Shanghai.
The source data that we used can be found here .
When we saw a negative indicator of real income for Moscow, we were very surprised. Everyone knows that the work of programmers is paid more than adequately, especially in the capital. Therefore, we compiled our rating by comparing Moscow with St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Kiev and Minsk.
The formula for the calculation was left the same, the average salary for all cities suggested by Yandex , the amount of daily expenses - Numbeo . The highest tax rate in Ukraine - add 18% of the military duty to 18% of personal income tax. The lowest is in Minsk, where the residents of the technopark deduct only 9% of their salaries to the state.
There were difficulties with calculating the cost of rent - for example, not everyone wants to live in the center of Moscow (hi, "My Street"!) Therefore, we made two lists: in the first one, the rent of a one-room apartment in the city center was deducted from the salary, and in the second, in the bedroom area.
Residents of Kiev can live in the city center and not count every penny. To save a year will turn out a little more than $ 3000. St. Petersburg is in second place, with real income of $ 2,326.13. Real income in Moscow is really in the red; however, in our case it turned out to be not as big as in the Codementor study. But if you do not mind living in a residential area, then you will still be able to earn money.
We understand that such studies are similar to measuring "average temperature in a hospital." In reality, everything is much more complicated - beginner and senior developers have a huge difference in income levels. Improve, expand the technology stack, increase your value in the market.
Until the end of August, Netology conducts an action : when you purchase 1 training program, the 2nd as a gift.
Where is the best place to look for a job for a developer? In New York? San Francisco?
Judging by the level of wages, Silicon Valley is a clear winner - the average annual income for a developer there is $ 110,554 , according to Glassdoor. But the cost of renting in the San Francisco Bay area is so high that not all developers can afford to rent housing there.
But where to look for work, if not in the Valley? For a more complete analysis, we compared the real income of software engineers in 43 cities around the world and found where they can earn the most. To do this, we used a simple formula:
Real income = Average salary - Taxes - Social security - Cost of living - Rent
What conclusions have we come to
If you don’t have time to read the whole article, here are the conclusions we came to:
Seattle is a clear winner, the salary there is close to that offered in Silicon Valley, and the rent is much lower. In general, with some exceptions in the United States, the results are better than outside. Interestingly, in the ranking of US cities, San Jose ranks 3rd out of 21, while San Francisco is only 19th. The rent difference is to blame.
On the East Coast, in New York and Washington (DC), things are even worse - they occupy the last two places, respectively. Phoenix is in second place, with Austin and Houston finishing the top five. If you look at the international rating, we advise you to pay attention to Tel Aviv, major cities in Canada and Berlin. But in London, Singapore and China, everything is not as good as we expected.
How we performed the calculations
Earlier we read an article on the Glassdoor portal " 25 cities with the best salaries for programmers ." In their ranking, San Jose is in second place, and San Francisco is third. Glassdoor believes that San Jose has a higher cost of living than San Francisco. Our data suggest otherwise.
Let's take a closer look at their formula:
Scaled income = ((average cost of living) / (actual cost of living)) * Basic income
Comparing life in different cities in this way seemed to us not quite correct. People just want to know how much money they have left by the end of the year.
Therefore, we have compiled our own formula for determining real income. We took the earnings of an average development engineer who lives alone in the city center, and used this as an indicator for ranking. This leads to completely different results.
Real income = Average salary - Taxes - Social security - Cost of living - Rent
Do not forget that a significant part of the salary goes to pay taxes, the amount of which varies depending on the region of residence. Therefore, in our calculations, we used the base salary for each city according to Glassdoor, calculated the amount that remained after tax, and then subtracted the cost of living from itand rental costs. To make it easier for you to understand how demanded your specialty is in different cities of the USA and around the world, we have calculated the number of vacancies now open.
How things are in the USA
Most indicators in America and other countries are markedly different. Therefore, it seemed to us that comparing them is not entirely correct, and we compiled two ratings: one for cities in the United States, and the second for everyone else.
Many believe that such a modest salary outside the United States is offset by the relatively low cost of living. But even considering this, salaries in other countries still cannot compete with salaries in the USA.
Our research suggests that Seattle is the best place for developers. Thanks to companies such as Amazon and Microsoft, the average salary almost reaches Silicon Valley, and lower rental costs mean more money saved each month.
If you are planning a move, then Phoenix, Austin and Houston are an excellent choice, the real income there is above $ 30,000. However, these markets are still growing and there are not so many vacancies as cities at the end of the list. Raleigh (North Carolina) is slightly inferior to Houston, but again, the labor market there is currently relatively small.
Above, we have already drawn your attention to the difference in real profits in San Jose and San Francisco. Cities are located close to each other - in the San Francisco Bay area, the market situation is also very similar, so why do we see such a big difference in real income? Our data shows that the salary and cost of living are almost identical, it's all about an expensive rental in San Francisco.
The spread of daily expenses is not so large, in contrast to the rental rate. In our ranking of US cities, Phoenix is on the third line, where the average cost of renting a one-bedroom apartment will cost you $ 972 per month. In San Francisco, you can rent a similar apartment for $ 3272, so it is only in 19th place.
Outside the San Francisco Bay Area, the most active labor market for developers is now developing in Washington, New York and Boston, but because of the high rents, they go to the bottom of our list. In Washington, at the moment, most of the vacancies are open. But the high cost of living and low average salary make us admit: Washington is not the best choice of all the cities of America.
How things are in other countries
We also decided to find out what is happening in other countries.
For comparison, we chose cities in which there are already or are emerging technology parks.
Oslo tops the list in terms of profit, but we have not mentioned it before, since the labor market there is the smallest of the 43 cities. Evaluate your chances soberly: only 106 vacancies are currently open in Oslo, and, for example, in New York - 22,554.
We think that it would be better to look at Tel Aviv, which is on the second line of our rating. There is a large industrial park, and the labor market in Tel Aviv looks quite good. In addition, there is a system of tax benefits for recently arrived in the country, which we did not take into account in our calculations.
Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are 3rd, 4th and 5th on our list of real income. There are more open vacancies in each of them than in Tel Aviv. The sixth place on the list is in Berlin, which houses one of Europe's largest technology parks. Bangalore deserves special mention - there you will find the largest number of vacancies and a very, very small real income.
London's real income is below the world average and much lower than in the United States. Another city that may surprise you is Beijing. Many admire technological innovations and the special conditions for local startups to enter the domestic market, but if we talk about salaries, there are better options.
In Singapore and Hong Kong your real income will be close to zero, and in Warsaw and Moscow even lower, we even awarded these cities negative values. This means that there a programmer with an average salary cannot afford to rent housing in the city center.
We also calculated the rate of return for cities outside the United States: income after tax was divided by expenses, and then indexed to a similar result for San Francisco. Thus, in San Francisco, the coefficient will be 100, and a value of 150 in another city will mean that living there is 50% more profitable than in San Francisco.
X = (After-tax income / expense)
City profitability ratio A = 100 * (X city A / (X San Francisco)
The results obtained for the most part repeat the schedule with real income. The most interesting in this case is the comparison of San Francisco and cities outside America. Most US cities have a coefficient value of over one hundred, and about half of non-US cities have a lower rate.
What else is worth considering
We understand that when choosing a city for work and life, you are not only interested in financial indicators. Therefore, we decided to see which cities will have the highest quality of life index. As a basis, we took the Numbeo Quality of Life Index, which is based on several factors:
- cost of living and purchasing power;
- affordability of housing;
- pollution (including air, water and so on);
- crime level;
- health system quality;
- the time that a person spends on the road from home to work.
For this comparison, we decided not to be limited to the cities of America, but to make a global rating. Baltimore and Detroit did not fall into it, since we did not have enough data to calculate the indices of these cities.
The top ten cities in terms of quality of life included Melbourne and another 9 American cities. However, outside of America, everything is not so bad - 13 out of 22 cities bypass New York. Remember these results: we don’t think that you want to live in a city with poor ecology.
Disclaimer
In our calculations, we assumed that we are talking about a development engineer who lives alone and receives an average salary for a given city. Your personal "real incomes" can differ greatly from those that we calculated - depending on the position, marital status and life situation.
Secondly, we are not professionals in the field of taxation, and, perhaps, we made a mistake somewhere. Having done this work, we began to respect accountants more - the international tax code is quite tedious. We assume that you are a resident of the country throughout the tax year. To get the amount of real income, we deducted income tax, local social insurance payments and compulsory insurance premiums. Also, we did not consider the situation in which you are subject to double taxation (this is possible if you simultaneously pay taxes in your homeland and in the country of temporary residence).
Thirdly, some discrepancies may arise due to sources in which we took data for comparison. Glassdoor Salary & Vacancy Data, the cost of living and rent is from Numbeo , and tax calculations are from the IRS and KPMG . It is noteworthy that in cities outside America there was less data on the level of salaries, so in some cases we used other sources. For example, we used Chinese sites to search for data in Beijing and Shanghai.
The source data that we used can be found here .
From the editors
When we saw a negative indicator of real income for Moscow, we were very surprised. Everyone knows that the work of programmers is paid more than adequately, especially in the capital. Therefore, we compiled our rating by comparing Moscow with St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Kiev and Minsk.
The formula for the calculation was left the same, the average salary for all cities suggested by Yandex , the amount of daily expenses - Numbeo . The highest tax rate in Ukraine - add 18% of the military duty to 18% of personal income tax. The lowest is in Minsk, where the residents of the technopark deduct only 9% of their salaries to the state.
There were difficulties with calculating the cost of rent - for example, not everyone wants to live in the center of Moscow (hi, "My Street"!) Therefore, we made two lists: in the first one, the rent of a one-room apartment in the city center was deducted from the salary, and in the second, in the bedroom area.
Residents of Kiev can live in the city center and not count every penny. To save a year will turn out a little more than $ 3000. St. Petersburg is in second place, with real income of $ 2,326.13. Real income in Moscow is really in the red; however, in our case it turned out to be not as big as in the Codementor study. But if you do not mind living in a residential area, then you will still be able to earn money.
Conclusion
We understand that such studies are similar to measuring "average temperature in a hospital." In reality, everything is much more complicated - beginner and senior developers have a huge difference in income levels. Improve, expand the technology stack, increase your value in the market.
Promotion from Netology
Until the end of August, Netology conducts an action : when you purchase 1 training program, the 2nd as a gift.