Yeah the employers side of hiring someone in UK/Ireland is far more expensive than in the US, plus we have incredibly strong workers rights and mandatory 23 day paid leave + 11 other bank holidays/national holidays a year. Not to mention redundancy pay. Downsizing ain't a knee-jerk thing here, it's a costly process.
In France its basically like they don't want a tech sector. Employee's rights are skewed so far to the left that Employers are often hamstrung and startup-culture is completely stagnant. Even running a Cafe you can end up paying an employee for a year or two who literally can't or won't show up for work.
In short though, Ireland/UK/Belgium are the highest paying areas for tech in Europe outside of a few select Financial/Banking enclaves in Geneva and Zurich, with the majority of non-FAANG Seniors capping out at €120k or thereabouts without going into the niche areas like SRE or Algo or Cloud Architect.
