[LRUG] uk salaries

[Jonathan]

Hi all,

I'm a kiwi, I've been working in the UK for almost two years now and
it's coming up to the end of my visa so I'll either need to leave soon
or look at options to stay.

Up until now I've been contracting and have had a couple of clients
but my main one would like to offer me a salary and sponsor me to stay
for a while (they've had a lot of trouble finding people in the past).
I have been quite happy with the idea of leaving at the end of my two
years but I'm finding that I rather like London so staying for a while
longer doesn't seem so bad! So I'm weighing the options and trying to
make an informed decision.

What I'd like to know is the kind of salary I can expect from the UK.
I know that there are a lot of jobs out there (we do like a good
discussion about jobs), but I don't know if the advertised wages are
actually representative of lruggers expectations. Does anyone know a
general ballpark figure for rails developers? I'm used to contracting
rates so I'm hoping I won't have to take too much of a pay drop
(although I suspect that will be the case if I go on a salary). In
your opinion are websites like this an accurate representation?

http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/web%20developer.do
http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/ruby%20on%20rails.do
http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/senior%20ruby%20on%20rails%20developer.do

Here's a little about me to give you an idea of my skill set: I've got
about three years rails experience and about 4 years .NET experience
before that so I have around 7 years web development experience total.
I work with any of OSX/Linux/Windows but I'm currently using OSX most
of the time. I've worked for some fairly big name companies back home
along with some smaller web based companies so my CV looks good on
paper and although I may be tooting my own horn; I'd say my general
competence is very good or excellent (I've never had anyone complain
at least!).

Any advice is much appreciated.

Thanks