well there are some online comparisons

https://qubit-labs.com/average-software-devel … arison-country/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1292279/a … ies-by-country/
https://theemployerofrecord.com/blog/services … lary-by-country

they all follow the same broad comparative amounts - but there is variance in the reports, i guess from their methodology and who they surveyed

there was less info about construction work, but

https://expatnetwork.com/which-is-the-best-co … uction-workers/
https://insightsartist.com/best-countries-for … orkers-in-2021/

this one is by trade and is a few years old but interesting

https://www.buildingtalk.com/tradesmen-around … -pays-the-most/

To be honest if i was advising a young person on career choices now i would say it is good to be educated in engineering and science but if it isn't of interest then to get a hands on trade skill or set of skills and not to have a full university education but more a vocational skills training and then top up with other skills and learning over time.

the age of learning a base set of skills at a young age and then being good for 40 years of work hasn't been true for many decades, but especially not in 21st century

Interestingly I work for an educational institution that employs both skilled trades and programmers and other IT specialists.

Pay varies depending on the job, but in general both types of jobs have the same range of pay. Range is about $50k/year (USD) to over $100k/year (USD) depending on the job.

gerry wrote on 2025-02-20, 13:25:

well there are some online comparisons […]
Show full quote

well there are some online comparisons

https://qubit-labs.com/average-software-devel … arison-country/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1292279/a … ies-by-country/
https://theemployerofrecord.com/blog/services … lary-by-country

they all follow the same broad comparative amounts - but there is variance in the reports, i guess from their methodology and who they surveyed

there was less info about construction work, but

https://expatnetwork.com/which-is-the-best-co … uction-workers/
https://insightsartist.com/best-countries-for … orkers-in-2021/

this one is by trade and is a few years old but interesting

https://www.buildingtalk.com/tradesmen-around … -pays-the-most/

To be honest if i was advising a young person on career choices now i would say it is good to be educated in engineering and science but if it isn't of interest then to get a hands on trade skill or set of skills and not to have a full university education but more a vocational skills training and then top up with other skills and learning over time.

the age of learning a base set of skills at a young age and then being good for 40 years of work hasn't been true for many decades, but especially not in 21st century

Funny, first link say 54k in Spain jaja, here to earn 54k you need to be top or something, even after taxes this is like 3500 month, god, most salaries i was offered as computer programmer or tech are in range 800-1200....

The other day i went to a interview for COBOL programmer for bank stuff, and they offer 22000 year without taxes, this is highest i get as a offer, but need to do long shifts, and i dont want to be 12-14hs outside home

Working in construction i can get 10-18 euro hour, then if i have a lucky day, 8hs work can be 80-140 euro, much more than any offer in computers i get

Thats why Im curious about other country real life and situation

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-02-20, 13:42:

Interestingly I work for an educational institution that employs both skilled trades and programmers and other IT specialists.

Pay varies depending on the job, but in general both types of jobs have the same range of pay. Range is about $50k/year (USD) to over $100k/year (USD) depending on the job.

Thanks, where is the North? europe? im south then

theelf wrote on 2025-02-20, 13:45:

Thanks, where is the North? europe? im south then

I'm in Canada.

Here in Brasil salaries for tech jobs are pretty low compared to some countries, my workaround for that was finding a remote job in outsourcing tech companies which do not have any offices here. The payment is in US dollars and in some cases can be almost 3x more than what I would get in a local job for the same position and same experience level, but still, those wages are still quite lower than what they pay to locals in such countries.

I feel that construction workers here are even more underpaid than tech people, initial salaries may be similar, but with tech your wages increase faster throughout you career. And then there are health concerns, I really don't know what is worse after many years: Staying in a chair more than 8 hours a day or strain your body daily with heavy construction work.

In short, people are getting paid far less than what they deserve 🙁

Well, I'm American, so...

To be honest I'm not familiar with the "cost of living" in other countries, so I couldn't say our salaries are necessarily greater in real terms. But the technology sector is mostly concentrated here, so that affects things.

To be honest the field of programming in particular has been flooded with too many low skilled people looking for easy money. Executives and management types are easily impressed by what a really mediocre programmer can do with Javascript and ChatGPT, which doesn't help. Foreign devs looking for American-scale money also don't help this effect as they seem to be self-selected based on how much they want the money and how good they are at playing HR to get a job, not how skilled they are.

I think there's going to be some thinning out at some point.

Back to how well paid we are, I don't know. Our real estate market is inordinately high right now. To put things in perspective, a salary of $125K is probably what you'd need to provide for your wife and a few kids with a typical house in a nice area and a car or two, and you wouldn't be saving much. Just five years ago I would have said $80-90K was enough. There's been a lot of inflation and I'm not sure how much salaries have caught up with it.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2025-02-20, 15:52:

Well, I'm American, so... […]
Show full quote

Well, I'm American, so...

To be honest I'm not familiar with the "cost of living" in other countries, so I couldn't say our salaries are necessarily greater in real terms. But the technology sector is mostly concentrated here, so that affects things.

To be honest the field of programming in particular has been flooded with too many low skilled people looking for easy money. Executives and management types are easily impressed by what a really mediocre programmer can do with Javascript and ChatGPT, which doesn't help. Foreign devs looking for American-scale money also don't help this effect as they seem to be self-selected based on how much they want the money and how good they are at playing HR to get a job, not how skilled they are.

I think there's going to be some thinning out at some point.

Back to how well paid we are, I don't know. Our real estate market is inordinately high right now. To put things in perspective, a salary of $125K is probably what you'd need to provide for your wife and a few kids with a typical house in a nice area and a car or two, and you wouldn't be saving much. Just five years ago I would have said $80-90K was enough. There's been a lot of inflation and I'm not sure how much salaries have caught up with it.

Hi, very high salaries over there

For example, my wife have a excel of income/expenses, last month,

Me - payroll 1048
Wife - payroll 897
Extra Hours payroll 321

income : 2266

Mortgage 950
Food 320
School 85
Electricity 72
Water 48
Butane 42
Clothes 30
Garbage tax 25
IBI tax 42
Bus 90
Internet/Phones 48
Home repair expenses 52

expenses: 1804

Savings 462

Last month we save 462 euro, well, a little less, because we go out for dinner with family, and i need to buy some extra stuff for work, but more or less this. I have 4 kids, but only two in house, the biger kids are living alone, both studing, thats why still pay scholl

gaffa2002 wrote on 2025-02-20, 15:16:

Here in Brasil salaries for tech jobs are pretty low compared to some countries, my workaround for that was finding a remote job in outsourcing tech companies which do not have any offices here. The payment is in US dollars and in some cases can be almost 3x more than what I would get in a local job for the same position and same experience level, but still, those wages are still quite lower than what they pay to locals in such countries.

I feel that construction workers here are even more underpaid than tech people, initial salaries may be similar, but with tech your wages increase faster throughout you career. And then there are health concerns, I really don't know what is worse after many years: Staying in a chair more than 8 hours a day or strain your body daily with heavy construction work.

In short, people are getting paid far less than what they deserve 🙁

Hey! greetings, im argentinian! same happen there, the only way to have a good salary is try to find US dollars

About second, believe me, from 18-35 heavy work is fine, after that better the chair jeje

950 Euro mortage... that would get you a small shack here in the US.

0 income, decades of programming. Can't recommend Finland if you have a non-traditional background, but you can code all you want on welfare at least.

In Estonia, software engineering for a decent level employee can go from 30k-80k/y. Anything lower than that would mean there's something wrong - either you are getting used by someone or you've agreed with some kind of special arrangement or something.
But most of it is .NET, Java, JS/TS and other such high-level languages. Plain C and C++ and other such lower level or embedded engineering does happen here, but i've got a feeling that the salary range is measurably lower on that side.

theelf wrote on 2025-02-20, 18:17:

Hey! greetings, im argentinian! same happen there, the only way to have a good salary is try to find US dollars

About second, believe me, from 18-35 heavy work is fine, after that better the chair jeje

Hey! Greetings hermano!

keenmaster486 wrote on 2025-02-20, 18:34:

950 Euro mortage... that would get you a small shack here in the US.

Ouch!

Yeah, usually when people say US salaries are high, they are considering the cost of living of their own countries. Personally having a lower "US-tier" salary while living somewhere cheaper is much better than having to move abroad and be paid more as a local.
Brasil is far from perfect, but from my experience living abroad I learned to value some very important things we have here that most brazilians take for granted: Things like more accessible fresh food and having health care managed by the government with regulated support from private companies instead of private companies ruling everything.
If only our salaries were better...

keenmaster486 wrote on 2025-02-20, 18:34:

950 Euro mortage... that would get you a small shack here in the US.

You should look at this relatively. He puts almost his entire salary for mortgage. But then again we should compare it to the average payrolls in its own country.

Here the salary is around 2000 to 5000€ per month for IT services (Helpdesk at the bottom, senior developers or senior sysops at the highest). After taxes you get around 1300€ to 3000€ per month. I'm somewhere in the middle and can still save (if I want to) like 70% of my monthly salary. But I spend too much on the hoarding of computer stuff 🤣

keenmaster486 wrote on 2025-02-20, 18:34:

950 Euro mortage... that would get you a small shack here in the US.

Well, if i will get a payment like you say, 50k year or something like this, i will live in a small shack or better under the bridge for some years and come back to Spain rich jeje

GigAHerZ wrote on 2025-02-20, 18:48:

In Estonia, software engineering for a decent level employee can go from 30k-80k/y. Anything lower than that would mean there's something wrong - either you are getting used by someone or you've agreed with some kind of special arrangement or something.
But most of it is .NET, Java, JS/TS and other such high-level languages. Plain C and C++ and other such lower level or embedded engineering does happen here, but i've got a feeling that the salary range is measurably lower on that side.

Yes, this is something happening here in Spain, for example I get much better paid for do a simple html website than update code for a italtec robot in assembler. I dont understand

kixs wrote on 2025-02-20, 20:31:

keenmaster486 wrote on 2025-02-20, 18:34:

950 Euro mortage... that would get you a small shack here in the US.

You should look at this relatively. He puts almost his entire salary for mortgage. But then again we should compare it to the average payrolls in its own country.

Here the salary is around 2000 to 5000€ per month for IT services (Helpdesk at the bottom, senior developers or senior sysops at the highest). After taxes you get around 1300€ to 3000€ per month. I'm somewhere in the middle and can still save (if I want to) like 70% of my monthly salary. But I spend too much on the hoarding of computer stuff 🤣

No idea in other country, here in Spain, for couples, normally is one salary for mortage/rent, the other to live

One of both lost job and you are fucked jaja

One thing to consider is where in Spain you live? Often the best paid jobs are in the big cities and pay drops quickly if you're outside these area's. But so does cost of living.

I had a friend who had a well-paying web programming job in Lonon, UK.
In 2019 He moved to Adelaide, Australia which is a small city. He said the University is the only place in the whole city that has any jobs that pay ok, but still his wife who is a specialist nurse earns more.
Sydney or Melbourne is where the good jobs are, but I'd say his quality of life is better then if he lived in either of those cities.

theelf wrote on 2025-02-20, 21:40:

No idea in other country, here in Spain, for couples, normally is one salary for mortage/rent, the other to live

One of both lost job and you are fucked jaja

Over here bus drivers make more than developers, but as long as you live separate you both get welfare as needed, plus you have your own place. Forget about kids and mortgage and you're set, in fact better not go to school either so you don't have to take a loan for that. Pretty low birth rate in Spain anyway, so I guess the problem is going away.

I have worked in the education sector in the UK for the past 22 years, skills mainly in Unix, network infrastructure, scaling, and high performance computing. Though also a bit of a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to programming.

In the early years of working in education I found the pay roughly comparable to industry, with some nice perks of working in education (training, no commercial deadlines, lack of on-call work etc).... but in the last 5-10 years the salaries have been eroded massively compared to the private sector and wider industry.

I'd hazard a guess that I could be on a £25-35k higher salary for my current role, where I to move to the private sector.

I stay for the relative amount of flexibility in determining my own workload, hybrid working (2 days on site, 3 days WFH) and lack of stress. Nearing 50 I have no desire to climb the corporate ladder or bust out 60 hour weeks to impress the boss.

A better salary would be nice, but it's not all about that, or at least that's what I've come to appreciate as I've gotten older.

theelf wrote on 2025-02-20, 21:40:

No idea in other country, here in Spain, for couples, normally is one salary for mortage/rent, the other to live

One of both lost job and you are fucked jaja

In Spain, it has been like this for about twenty years, the 2008 crisis made it clear. Now with the problem of the cost of housing, everything has gotten much worse for many people. Even if they have a salary that would be considered decent, the cost of living has gone up a lot more. My experience in the repair sector has been bad in terms of wages, but after the pandemic, wages should have gone up in the sector, I know that the bosses are paid more than before, because confinement and teleworking emphasized the need for one or more computers at home.
For many people, the computer is more important than the car, there is public transport, but public computers where they can do their work, not as far as I know.

Is there a job that doesn't suck? Every day it's the same old song, over and over again. How do people stand this? And what good is all the money when you're feeling like a zombie all the time?