Salary equivalency: London vs Berlin
Coming to London at this point of time is not a wise decision, not that I mean to discourage you. The job market is quite competitive because loads of developers are in the markets, because of the layoffs. So be ready to wait for some time to land a role. Banks aren't recruiting that heavily, but that might change if the economy picks up. Regarding salaries, the contract rates you quote are primarily for banking sector jobs, some outside banking also pay those rates, but they are few.  You can quote what you want to a recruiter, most contracts are through them as most managers have a fincancial get go between recruiters and themselves. Recruiters take their cut what they bill, 400+200(just a guess). So the more they take from the 400, better is their margin. So they try to decrease the 400 portion. But the important point is be ready to keep your chair warm for some time. I am not sure why you have to move to London. Keep your current job. Get a Skype number or something and get the calls diverted to your phone in Germany. You can come down to London for interviews and schedule them so you come in a week and give all your interviews. London is a costly place, you can find cheap places to stay too. But without a job and searching for one will get you depressed(been there and experienced it) Germany is substantially cheaper than the London . You would need at least double your current income to maintain the same lifestyle in London.  Even then, you will likely have to settle for a cramped housing or a long commute. Java developers are largely contractors in the UK.  Typical wages and rates can be found at www.itjobswatch.co.UK Wages go up and down depending on supply and demand. Don't quit till you have another offer.
"You are in your mid 30's and have 250,000 to put aside for investments- that is a fantastic position to be in. First, let's evaluate all the options you listed. Option 1 I could buy two studio apartments in the center of a European capital city and rent out one apartment on short-term rental and live in the other. Occasionally I could Airbnb the apartment I live in to allow me to travel more (one of my life goals). To say ""European capital city"" is such a massive generalization, I would disregard this point based on that alone. Athens is a European capital city and so is Berlin but they have very different economies at this point. Let's put that aside for now. You have to beware of the following costs when using property as an investment (this list is non-exhaustive): The positive: you have someone paying the mortgage or allowing you to recoup what you paid for the apartment. But can you guarantee an ROI of 10-15% ? Far from it. If investing in real estate yielded guaranteed results, everyone would do it. This is where we go back to my initial point about ""European capital city"" being a massive generalization. Option 2 Take a loan at very low interest rate (probably 2-2.5% fixed for 15 years) and buy something a little nicer and bigger. This would be incase I decide to have a family in say, 5 years time. I would need to service the loan at up to EUR 800 / USD 1100 per month. If your life plan is taking you down the path of having a family and needed the larger space for your family, then you need the space to live in and you shouldn't be looking at it as an investment that will give you at least 10% returns. Buying property you intend to live in is as much a life choice as it is an investment. You will treat the property much different from the way something you rent out gets treated. It means you'll be in a better position when you decide to sell but don't go in to this because you think a return is guaranteed. Do it if you think it is what you need to achieve your life goals. Option 3 Buy bonds and shares. But I haven't the faintest idea about how to do that and/or manage a portfolio. If I was to go down that route how do I proceed with some confidence I won't lose all the money? Let's say you are 35 years old. The general rule is that 100 minus your age is what you should put in to equities and the rest in something more conservative. Consider this: This strategy is long term and the finer details are beyond the scope of an answer like this. You have quite some money to invest so you would get preferential treatment at many financial institutions. I want to address your point of having a goal of 10-15% return. Since you mentioned Europe, take a look at this chart for FTSE 100 (one of the more prominent indexes in Europe).  You can do the math- the return is no where close to your goals. My objective in mentioning this: your goals might warrant going to much riskier markets (emerging markets). Again, it is beyond the scope of this answer." This is amazing. Pretty standard in the EU but as an Americanizing in London it took multiple Brit friends to get me to take a few days as my marriage ended. Ultimately helped me save a few deals I was working on that began to fall apart as I struggled. "Using your example link, I found the corresponding chart for a stock that trades on London Stock Exchange: https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=RIO.L#symbol=RIO.L;range=1d As you can see there, the chart runs from ~8:00am to ~4:30pm, and as I write this post it is only 2:14pm Eastern Time.  So clearly this foreign chart is using a foreign time zone.  And as you can see from this Wikipedia page, those hours are exactly the London Stock Exchange's hours. Additionally, the closing price listed above the graph has a timestamp of ""11:35AM EST"", meaning that the rightmost timestamp in the graph (~4:30pm) is equal to 11:35AM EST.  16:30 - 11:30 = 5 hours = difference between London and New York at this time of year. So those are two data points showing that Yahoo uses the exchange's native time zone when displaying these charts." This More or Less podcast has a fantastic section on executive pay in the US and UK. With some economists whose research determined that there is basically no relation between remuneration and performance.  In Germany, Switzerland etc where there are different rules and factors there is less overall executive pay and it is far more tied to performance.   http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/moreorless/moreorless_20120511-1640a.mp3 "Background: I live and work in a small city (250k) and want to work somewhere much larger (New York, London, Chicago, Sydney). Ideal job is something quantitative and related to programming/analytics in finance, though I have passed the CFA Level III Exam to show my interest in the field and currently work as a systems and database analyst (job title is ""Senior financial analyst"".) I have a Master's in mathematical finance but my work mostly relates to personal side projects.  Questions:  Short of packing up and moving, what is an effective way to network with people from these larger cities?  Is there demand for quants and junior quants, or is there too much supply? Will I need to get a PhD to be relevant? Can I transfer my background or skills into another area of finance first to get the networking contacts?" I understand how it works very well - as Europes financial centre. I understand that without UKs EU membership those days are gone. I understand that rents in Frankfurt are skyrocketing because banks are fleeing a sinking ship. Without financial passporting rights to the worlds second largest economy London as a financial centre is finished. New York does well because it's part of Americas economy, Hong Kong does well because it's part of China's economy. Literally the same drivers in the same cars (since it's the same licence to be able to drive for them) and Cabify quotes you a fixed price and I like the interface better. It's just far less useful when traveling as it tends to be only really useful in Spain. "Did you see that Kaiser pays their average nurse $110K?  Nurse in the sense of ""works full time at a major hospital"".  As for the police: the $75K doesn't include time in rank bonus....which even in NYC goes from $45K to $90K in five years. Time in rank bonus is a very big deal." I think you're on the right track.  Keep it up. You are still relatively young, and it wont have an impact.  You have experience and you have a lot of education, both will be assets.    I can't comment on the region question because I have only ever worked in one region.  Are you asking from a purely economics/getting paid perspective?  One approach you can take is making a little spreadsheet with average trader salary divided by cost of living in that region. The issue is that trader salaries and bonuses vary SO MUCH in every region, that you can't make any generalizations. Singapore does well because?  Zurich does well because?  London is already a much larger and more versatile financial centre than anywhere you have cited (bar New York) or the above.  Not all financial services require passporting and, as I mentioned,'it remains to be seen whether some arrangement can be reached that allows firms UK firms similar passport privileges within the EU that they currently enjoy. Finance is very different from trade and the City is far less vulnerable to this political divorce than British importers and exporters.   Never mind that London is a much greater cultural hub than any would be pretenders. I work in finance, no one I know has the slightest inclination to move to Frankfurt.  It'll take a generation for any city to build up the institutional knowledge, infrastructure and talent pool that exists in Greater London. "You are right, if by ""a lot of time"" you mean a lot of occasions lasting a few milliseconds each. This is one of the oldest arbitrages in the book, and there's plenty of people constantly on the lookout for such situations, hence they are rare and don't last very long. Most of the time the relationship is satisfied to within the accuracy set by the bid-ask spread. What you write as an equality should actually be a set of inequalities.  Continuing with your example, suppose 1 GBP ~ 2 USD, where the market price to buy GBP (the offer) is $2.01 and to sell GBP (the bid) is $1.99.  Suppose further that 1 USD ~ 2 EUR, and the market price to buy USD is EUR2.01 and to sell USD is EUR1.99.  Then converting your GBP to EUR in this way requires selling for USD (receive $1.99), then sell the USD for EUR (receive EUR3.9601).  Going the other way, converting EUR to GBP, it will cost you EUR4.0401 to buy 1 GBP.  Hence, so long as the posted prices for direct conversion are within these bounds, there is no arbitrage." Just like Switzerland lost its banking privileges by not being in the EU, huh?   The truth is none of us really know what's going to happen so we all need to stop throwing out opinions as fact.  London has an already established stable banking climate and the cost and effort of relocating to other places might prove to be too high as opposed to just working something out between the Brits and the Europeans. We just don't know yet. "Since a lot of the companies in your source are public accounting firms, I'm interested in if these salaries are similar to what they (PwC, EY, Deloitte, etc...) pay their entry level accountants? How about entry level advisory accountants? Do their accountant salaries ever approach the level of their ""consultants""?" From my understanding: Original Holding:  Siemens - 10,000 units at 80 Euros/unit Cost = 800,000 euros Spin-off: Every 10 Siemens get 1 OSRAM On July 5th, 2013: Siemens closing - 78 Euros On Monday, July 8th: Ex-date (opening) - 75 Euros Hence: Market value for:- 1.  Siemens: 75 * 10,000 = 750,000 euros 2.  OSRAM: (10,000 / 10) * (78 - 75) = 3,000 euros Total Market value = 780,000 + 3,000 = 753,000 euros Ratio for: 1. Siemens = 750,000 / 753,000 = 0.996015936 2. OSRAM = 3,000 / 753,000 = 0.003984063 Cost for: 1. Siemens = 800,000 * 0.996015936 = 796,812.75 2. OSRAM = 3,187.25 From Seattle. So a local minimum wage law is not pushing out as many jobs as naysayers projected.  Not that surprising, really. The switch to capital takes time, so data within the first year or two isn't going to show you much.