Thread: 1000$ - much or little?

If anyone wants to find out how much they'd make working in London, check here:
Jobsite.co.uk or jobserve.com. Particularly for people who work in IT.
A Russian person with specialised IT skills could easily get a job in the UK.

Out of a curiosity, how much a .NET (C#, VB.Net) developer is paid in UK?

I am not too sure about the others, but I recruited a .net developer about a year and a half ago. He accepted an offer of £40,000 per year and was reasonably experienced. In London it's about 30,000-45,000 per year, depending on which type of company and how good they are at "selling themselves" in the job interview. (UK salaries are always per year, not month). VB is a less valued skill and I am not sure about C#.
The tax on a salary like that would be about 28%.

If any IT person from Russia wanted to try working in London for a while, it's apparently relatively easy to get a UK working visa in the "highly skilled worker" scheme. I think an IT degree is all that's needed. Russian developers have a very good reputation, so it's not hard to get a job here if you know how to code..

I can't work out how much I would make in Moscow, and it's very hypothetical since I couldn't apply for a regular job since I can't speak Russian to the required level.. It would have to be a job geared at an English speaking foreigner.

It amounts to £2,400 a month (tax excluded). Not very much, by the way, considering the higher apartment costs and generally UK's being more expensive for living...

The only problem with many Russian developers (of highest class, by the way) I know is that they don't have any degree in IT Most of them are self-educated (just like myself, by the way, having a degree in Economics/Finance but no degree in IT but still being a rather good programmer).

Yup, I didn't want to say anything but it's true that it's not ideal.
The problem is that transport and housing is so expensive that all your money goes towards that. In fact, that's what I made as a junior project manager when I split up with my fiancee and found myself "alone" in London. Luckily that's history.

But one should always keep a perspective! There are PLENTY of people who live on 20,000 per year; all the people who work in the thousands of coffeeshops and clothes shops... People come to London from all across Europe to live like that..

Originally Posted by alexB

Originally Posted by chaika

7000 RUR (about 240$) a month.

One of my pet peeves is putting the dollar sign in the wrong place. It makes the writer look to me like a little dim. You put the dollar symbol in front and the cents symbol after, as any literate American knows.

What would you say if we started writing R7000 using our rules of position for the denomination? I would imagine it looks equally strange to y'all.

Thanks for the news. I never paid attention to where the dollar sign was placed. I assumed it was a substitute for the word dollar, to save space and time when writing, therefore it was, I though, logical enough to put it after the number, right where the word might have been. Was it not?

AlexB, I have looked around for an answer to your question about WHY we write the $ first and not after and I just cannot seem to locate anything! I have learned all about the myths of how the $ came to be about, but nothing on WHY

In the United States, the dollar symbol precedes the number, unlike almost all other units. Five dollars is written and printed as $5, whereas five cents is written as 5¢.

If someone else wants to take on this challenge, please do and let us know the reason!

However, I will tell you it is not always a substitute. You will often see something like this:

Google Takes Up $5 Million Dollars Of Ad Space A DAY To Promote Nexus One

or

‘Now for the second time James Cameron has made a movie that has brought in over $1 billion dollars!

We write the $ sign and still write the word dollar, yet, when we read it or say it aloud, we only read the written word "dollar."

I never really thought about WHY we do this. Maybe it is to show that it is in US currency and not any other currency? Donno?

Well lots of currencies do the same thing....
Not sure if the dollar started it, or what.
Apparently there is even one for the Ruble now, a P with a horizontal bar across the trunk.

Originally Posted by Ramil

They do. There are russian services like http://www.hh.ru, http://www.superjob.ru, etc. They usually indicate a salary 'fork'. An IT specialist (not just a guy who can find 'any key' on a keyboard) on the average is offered 50,000 - 70,000 RUR (about $2000) per month. Though it may be as low as 20,000 and as high as 150,000 (but these are the extremes).

What's an IT specialist?

Originally Posted by Ramil

The only problem with many Russian developers (of highest class, by the way) I know is that they don't have any degree in IT Most of them are self-educated (just like myself, by the way, having a degree in Economics/Finance but no degree in IT but still being a rather good programmer).

Yeah, this is silly - it wouldn't be a problem for a Polish person for example, because he wouldn't need a visa because they are in the EU... or even a Russian from the Baltic states. But someone from Russia proper would need a visa, plus Serbs, Croats and a few more Europeans. Silly. There needs to be a union between Russia and the EU as soon as possible.

Originally Posted by Waterlaz

Originally Posted by Ramil

They do. There are russian services like http://www.hh.ru, http://www.superjob.ru, etc. They usually indicate a salary 'fork'. An IT specialist (not just a guy who can find 'any key' on a keyboard) on the average is offered 50,000 - 70,000 RUR (about $2000) per month. Though it may be as low as 20,000 and as high as 150,000 (but these are the extremes).

What's an IT specialist?

IT stands for Information Technology.

Originally Posted by Johanna

Yeah, this is silly - it wouldn't be a problem for a Polish person for example, because he wouldn't need a visa because they are in the EU... or even a Russian from the Baltic states. But someone from Russia proper would need a visa, plus Serbs, Croats and a few more Europeans. Silly. There needs to be a union between Russia and the EU as soon as possible.

So its the immigration authorities who require a proper degree, not the potential employers?

IT stands for Information Technology.

Yeah, that's kind of obvious. The meaning of "IT specialist" isn't though :3

Someone with a university degree in IT, or who had worked for a long time in IT.
As opposed to someone who just has computing as a hobby.

Originally Posted by Waterlaz

IT stands for Information Technology.

Yeah, that's kind of obvious. The meaning of "IT specialist" isn't though :3

Oh, you mean 'who is worthy to be called a specialist in this field?'

IT sphere itself is not so 'monolithic' as it's been before (some 10-15 years ago). Now there are networking specialists, database administrators, developers, web-developers, etc.
Like in every profession there are professionals and amateurs who think they are professionals. And it's really hard to understand at first glance one from another. I used to work as a project manager and had 6 programmers 'under my command'. Even though they were all skilled and quite proficient with coding itself they lacked theoretical knowledge, algorithms, optimisation, etc. And there was only one whom I would gladly and promptly exchanged for a hundred of boys like the rest of them. They were creating stupid programming interfaces, they ignored guidelines, they simply didn't understand the specifications, etc. It was hell. I paid virtually with my blood to meet the deadline. But each one thought he was a guru .

I don't work in IT now but I have to work with the IT department of our company. There are only 3 system administrators that maintain a VPN over 21 cities - they ARE professionals indeed, but when my 20 years old neighbor claims he's a system administrator too I can only laugh.

Originally Posted by Ramil

So its the immigration authorities who require a proper degree, not the potential employers?

Yeah, more or less. Because the person would have to apply for the "highly skilled worker" visa scheme and that requires a degree and they probably would check that properly from the British embassy in Russia.

But when that formality is sorted, it doesn't matter. Degrees are not THAT important in IT. As you probably know (just saw your other post).

Plus.... it would not occur to anyone in the UK to actually attempt to check that someone really had a degree from a Russian university. If he could prove that he knew what he was talking about in a job interview, that would be enough. So it's down to his conscience what he puts as his qualification.

LtColumbo was saying that the same thing was true in Russia, his English qualification which he may or may not actually posess... had never been checked by his Russian employers. In light of the fact that he teaches English I think that is fine.. What matters is whether he can teach English, not whether he has a certain degree or not.

IT sphere itself is not so 'monolithic' as it's been before (some 10-15 years ago). Now there are networking specialists, database administrators, developers, web-developers, etc.

That's exactly what I mean. And the amount of money one would make largely depends on th exact field he is working in.

Originally Posted by Ramil

Oh, you mean 'who is worthy to be called a specialist in this field?'

I used to work as a project manager and had 6 programmers 'under my command'. Even though they were all skilled and quite proficient with coding itself they lacked theoretical knowledge, algorithms, optimisation, etc. And there was only one whom I would gladly and promptly exchanged for a hundred of boys like the rest of them. They were creating stupid programming interfaces, they ignored guidelines, they simply didn't understand the specifications, etc.

That is the same in any specialized field though....if you don't understand the END USER or don't have the "vision" to see what it is you are actually creating. It is not just code. It is code which ends up being "something." Also, I am not certain this "younger" generation takes the same pride in their work as "us" older folks... but that might be a different thread.

Very interesting so far! One more question if you guys don't mind: how about taxes? Here in Belgium we give about 1/3 (more or less, the more you earn, the more you have to give) of what we earn to the state in the form of taxes. So how about in Russia?

It's a flat rate of 13%. It's the lowest personal income tax in Europe I think. Even more, many people get their salary in cash unofficially and pay little or no taxes whatsoever.

It's the employer who pays the rest. If you employ someone then YOU should pay a social tax for him (it's 26% of his salary).

Here's how it goes:

Your 'official' salary is 20,000 roubles, you pay 20,000 * 0.13 = 2,600, but your employer has to pay a so called 'social tax' of 5,200 (26%). That's why many employers try to keep the official salary fund at minimum. They will pay you 20,000 officially and 50,000 in cash. (If that was official you would have to pay additionally 6,500 and your employer - 13,000).
And as an employee I don't need to actually pay something. My income tax is deduced from my salary, so in this example I will get only 17,400 (it's called 'white salary') and my income tax will be paid along with social tax by my employer. Then your employer pays so called 'black salary' to you and nobody pays anything from it.

This scheme was working fine but if your 'official' income is low it's hard to get a loan so many people try to find an employer who will pay 'in white'.

In result, the salaries in Russia are taxated at 39% (13% -from an employee, 26% - from his employer). I guess it is the median international level. Some words on the structure: the united social tax has been split into three payments since January, 1, 2010: 20% - payment to the goverment pension fund, social security- 2,9%, state medical insurance - 3,1%. Previously the united tax covered the same articles, but the federal authorities distributed the collected money.

A common person needn't do tax payments himself unless he's self-employed, has sold out a property during a fiscal year, or simply has several jobs (including temporary contracts). If he has only a permanent one, the company pays everything for him, including alimonies (if applicable).