London day rates I've seen for contractors are more like 700 - 900/day on average at places that pay a bit better and 1000+ for specialists. And base salaries I've seen advertised for senior developers at funded startups (e.g. Wagestream, Truelayer) are more like 105k now (more for higher levelings - i.e. Principal/Staff).
Good news about the day rates! I wonder how much of this is about stack - most of my knowledge is of the generic Java development scene, and I'm extremely out of touch even with that now
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.
I hope to see day rate contracting adapt to the new legislation and make a big return, though i'm not holding my breath.
As a data point, i'm London based, moved from £800 per day to £140k permanent position last year. "Lead Architect" role, whatever that means these days and ~18yrs experience in the industry. I'll be returning the contract work as soon as I see the market bouncing back.
Some of the parts about having to register for a specific party because of primaries, yeah.
Listing whether someone voted and bugging them about it? Not at all. It's the knockoff form of making voting mandatory. Just do your duty and fill out the piece of paper. No one can see what's on it.
