What shortage? London has most tech talent – but wages lag

London has the largest developer population of any major tech hub in the world, according to research conducted by Stack Overflow on behalf of London & Partners.

Despite the constant calls for more, the Capital is home to 71,947 developers who are part of the Stack Overflow community, beating San Francisco and The Valley on 67,889, and New York City on 55,570.

The city’s closest rival in Europe is Paris, which has 40,536 developers using the Stack Overflow platform, and London also has more techies than Stockholm, Berlin and Dublin combined.

But, perhaps a consequence of this relative abundance, wages are significantly lower for developers working in London than in the major US tech hubs, even though the cost of living is around 10% more than in San Francisco.

San Francisco-based developers can expect to take home $123,054 a year, followed by New York City’s devs on $108,302.

London’s developer community comes in third with an average salary of $87,622, followed closely by Tel Aviv, which has a small developer community of just 23,670 people, receiving an average salary of $87,500.

Devs in Estonia and Hungary’s capitals can only expect to take home $31,176 and $29,288 respectively, but the cost of living is significantly lower than in the other cities in the London’s Developer Landscape study.

Of course, London also has a significantly larger population compared to San Francisco and relative to population size, the US city has around 10-times more developers per head.

“The UK’s capital city is now a global powerhouse for technologists, rivalling New York and San Francisco city,” said Dimitar Stanimiroff, MD of Stack Overflow EMEA.

“London based businesses can benefit from access to 25% more developers and over 15% more mobile developers than New York City. London is also ahead of its European counterparts for the number of back-end developers, mobile and Microsoft technologies.”

Mayor of London, Boris Johnson MP, said: “With Europe’s fastest growing tech hub and some of the world’s leading universities, London based businesses can benefit from access to an unparalleled talent pool.

“Five years on since the creation of the Tech City project, the capital’s booming tech sector has gone from strength-to-strength and continues to be a leading source of jobs and growth for the London economy.”