London developers do not get paid well vs cost of living. I interviewed for a city based senior data engineer role at a large insurer and was supprised that they choked at 45K basic not much package.

Generally uk dev pay is very bad compared to US or even other Europe.

Contract work used to be basically the only way to make good money but this has now been nobbled. Not a good city to work in.

As a result permie developers generally don't have a huge amount of a savings.

I was able to get Senior at £74k in London. Nothing to sneeze at in principle, save for the London cost of living.

Moved to New York following Brexit, now making literally twice that. (Paying twice that for housing, too, but my housing is more like 15 minutes from work instead of 60 and I have a real subway option instead of putting up with Southern Rail and the strikes.)

>You don't get government unemployment benefits in the UK if you have >16k in savings

This isn't true. You'll get new style JSA for 6 months [1] pending you have contributed NI for the past 2/3 years which almost all will have.

https://www.gov.uk/jobseekers-allowance/eligibility

You're talking about universal credit which yes you won't qualify for with greater than 16k savings (pension savings or HTB ISA are however are excluded).

How much are unemployment benefits worth in the UK? Like if you are a programmer, what percent of monthly salary would be the unemployment benefits?

Shit all. New style JSA is £74.35 a week plus you could also potentially claim Universal Credit (if you've got under £16k savings) which is £94. £730 or so a month is not enough to live on if you're having to pay for your accommodation in most of the south.

The Local Housing Allowance pretty low but you'd be able to claim the it, housing element of UC, on top of UC.