That is indeed very rare. A simple sanity check you can look at how many people earn about 100k in the UK, we know the figure for above 125k is 500,000 [1]. We can subtract the number of other jobs that we know for sure pay above this for example lawyers at magic circle firms which start on >150k for newly qualified lawyers, consultants in the NHS, directors of large corportaions, and we end up with a very small amount of people in other industries that earn these figures. Even before that we know the median is about £50k, and I can tell you from experience you can hire very very good software people on those wages, even in London.

From personal experience, I also know of software guys making that, but I also know far far more people earning below that, and these are oxford/cambridge/imperial/UCL grads....

[1]: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/personal-incomes-st...

Just want to echo the other replies and say i think this is rare. It happens, but it's rare. I have >15 years experience, and currently work in finance making plenty. A while ago, i spoke to a recruiter about opportunities outside finance; everything he had topped out at ~90k for engineers, a bit higher for team leads.

But then, i also have friends working at a few non-finance companies on 100-150k. Small places, willing to pay for quality. Seems to be unusual though!

They are almost always contractors. If you work permanent it tops out max at about £75,000-90,000.