A new survey has revealed that the salaries of European games programmers are
around a third lower than those earned by their counterparts in North America.
Titled Game Developer Salary Report: 2004 - 2007, the survey was conducted by
Game Developer magazine. More than 1000 European professionals took part with
the majority coming from the UK, followed by Germany, France, Spain and the
Netherlands.
According to excerpts shown to GamesIndustry.biz, their responses revealed
that the most lucrative jobs in games development are in business and legal work
- with the average salary for 2006 standing at around EUR 53k (GBP 36k).
Next on the list are production staff, who earn an average of EUR 45k (GBP
30,500), followed by programmers on EUR 40k (GBP 27k). Game designers and audio
specialists both earn a similar average wage of between EUR 34,500 - EUR 34,750
(around GBP 23,500), while the figure for visual artists is a little lower at
EUR 34,300 (GBP 23,200). At the bottom of the pile are QA staff, who earn an
average of just over EUR 26,000 (GBP 17,500).
