That's base salary, and there will be pension contributions, benefits, maybe worthless options, etc, but not a stock package that doubles the total comp.
High finance and FAANGs with London offices pay much more - more base salary, and chunky stock or bonus packages. Not all of finance pays well - plenty of high-street banks pay their developers poorly (and it shows). I work in a successful trading firm and earn comparably to an L5 at Google, according to levels.fyi.
Day rates for contractors seem to vary a lot, but 400 - 600 a day, maybe? The contracting scene is still adapting to recent tax law changes, though.
This is assuming we're talking about programmers. Median salary across the whole of London is ~40k. Tons of people earning 20k working in a shop etc.
On the permanent positions, that sounds like a seniority thing. The people I know aren't staff or principal. I know someone who's sort of head of engineering at a small but healthy startup, and I think he's on 120k or something.
Contracting has taken a massive hit with COVID and with the change in tax rate, that both happened almost at the same time.
Contracting was definitely the way to make it in London. You could charge £500-1000 easily a decade ago with very little taxes. Depends on the skillset. I think that was made it on-par with what you could make in the Silicon Valley and NYC depending on the exchange rate (2016 Brexit really hurt).
Some commenters may rightfully point out that it's not as high as L6 compensation, but it's much easier to get and you don't have to spend $60k for a year of college or a day in a hospital (that's the number one of my US coworker quoted for his daughter).
Also, worked in London and TC of £500k+ was possible for an L6 after 4 years of refreshers and performance multiplier. Knew a few peers on packages closer to $1MM. Definitely possible, but maybe this is a small select group. FAANG are generally growing in London though. Easier to find talent than in the US right now.
