Yea almost no one is making Bay Area level TCs in either location aside from those directly relocated from the Bay or working in HFT at Citadel, Jane Street, or DE Shaw, but you will be able to make Germany or UK level TC (US$50k-110k) with the right track record and experience. Ofc, an equally large cohort will be earning low salaries in the $5k-15k range, but those are largely employed at WITCH or EPAM type companies which employers are trying to cut out of the loop.
Then you're making the same mistake that Americans are increasingly making as well.
If you aren't top tier talent (Google, Citadel, Bloomberg, or sexy FinTech startup equivalent) we can get by offering £50k-£90k TC for 10-12 YoE in London. This is reflected in the annual TC distribution on levels.fyi [0] - London TC distributions are severely right skewed.
For top talent we are fine matching US salaries 1:1, but most of those roles are basically for people who worked in the US but faced visa issues.
The thing is, most American companies aren't interested in hiring "real talent" at scale in the UK because the salary ends up becoming the same as the US but the pool of candidates is shallower - especially when I can hop over to CEE and open an office in Warsaw, Cluj, or Prague and get significantly higher quality talent at the £50k-£80k range.
