Comment by rcxdude

Roughly speaking, when I've looked into this comparison, for near-median earners, they're better off in the UK, because of things like healthcare. But when you look at the higher-earning roles, especially engineering or software, then the different in pay more than makes up for the increased cost of living (i.e. a higher percentage of your pay may go towards cost of living, but the smaller percentage of money left over is still larger in absolute terms). There's other tradeoffs in terms of work culture and so on, though (e.g. you get much more holiday in the UK).