Compensation · interactive · with forecast
17 cities, 2016–2035. The same median senior software engineer pay, viewed four ways — gross, after tax, purchasing power after local cost of living, and saving power (what's actually left to invest). Solid lines are actuals through 2025; the shaded zone is a forecast built from published salary-budget, inflation and currency research — not just last decade's trend.
The trend to 2035 — purchasing power 2026–35 forecast
Each line is median senior software engineer total comp (base + bonus + cash equity), in USD. Gross is the headline; after tax subtracts each city's effective income tax + employee social security; purchasing power divides take-home by local cost of living, expressing everything in NYC–equivalent dollars. Saving power is the most concrete of all: take-home minus what it actually costs a single person to live there (a ~$55k/yr NYC baseline scaled by each city's cost-of-living index), i.e. roughly what you could pour into the investment plans on the other tabs each year. It can go negative (Tehran), meaning local pay doesn't cover local costs. 2025 anchors are sourced (Levels.fyi, Glassdoor, Numbeo, PwC/OECD); 2016–2024 are reconstructed from documented trends.
Rather than extrapolating each city's last decade, the forecast is assembled fact by fact from three independent, published inputs and combined as:
That construction matters: in purchasing-power terms the currency move cancels out, so a city's real trajectory reduces to its real wage growth (salary minus its own inflation) plus US inflation. The inputs, each from a named source:
3.5%, UK 3.8%, Germany 3.1%, Netherlands ~4.5% (tech 6.3%), Denmark ~3%, Spain 4.0%, Portugal ~4.5%, Australia 3.5%, Singapore 4.1%, Malaysia ~4.8% (APAC avg 5.2%), Dubai ~4.3%.2.40% (PCE 2.22%); the ECB's forecasters have pinned euro-area 2030 inflation at 2.0% for ten consecutive rounds (Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Denmark); the Bank of England sees the UK back to ~2% from 2027; Australia runs hotter inside the RBA's 2–3% band at ~2.6%; Singapore ~1.8%, Malaysia / UAE ~2.0–2.5%. Iran is the outlier the IMF still flags near 43% in 2025, easing only to ~25% by 2030. Subtracting each city's inflation from its salary number is what leaves the real wage growth that drives the purchasing-power line — roughly 1–2.5%/yr for the mature hubs.~+0.8 to +1%/yr vs USD; the UAE dirham and Hong Kong dollar are pegged (0); the Malaysian ringgit roughly flat. This adds a small USD tailwind to European and Australian pay.~30–40% hyperinflation but the rial keeps sliding (IMF: −6.1% GDP, ~69% inflation for 2026; PBS/Al Jazeera: ~1.75M/USD and falling). Partly offset by Iranian engineers increasingly billing foreign clients in USD/crypto, the net is modelled at −3.5%/yr in dollars — highly uncertain, shown as a single cautionary scenario.The result, on purchasing power: low-tax, peg-or-appreciating, still-catching-up hubs — Dubai, Texas, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Lisbon — gain the most by 2035; high-tax Northern Europe and Australia grow steadily but stay mid-table; Tehran keeps slipping. It remains a scenario, not a promise — FX beyond ~2 years and a decade of AI disruption are genuinely unknowable.
Sources: Levels.fyi · Numbeo · PwC Tax · Mercer / WorldatWork 2026 budgets · Robert Walters APAC 2026 · Kienbaum (DE/NL) · IMF WEO 2026 · Philadelphia Fed SPF (US 10-yr CPI) · ECB SPF (euro-area 2030) · BLS Outlook 2024–34 · MUFG / FX forecasts · Al Jazeera (Iran). Forecast is a researched scenario, not financial advice.
The other path · investing
Same decade, different question. If you'd put $100,000 into each option at the end of 2015 — stocks, crypto, gold, or a leveraged rental property (10% down) across these same cities — here's what it would be worth at the end of 2025. The dashed line is the inflation break-even; anything to its left lost real value.
All figures assume a single $100,000 lump sum at end of 2015, valued at end of 2025, in USD. Stocks and funds are total return (dividends reinvested, split-adjusted). Property is the city home-price change, converted to USD where the currency floats. The inflation line marks roughly +33% US cumulative CPI — what your money had to beat just to stand still.
+258,000%) and Bitcoin (~+43,500%) are off-the-scale. Real, but a once-in-a-generation base effect — toggle the Crypto class off to read the rest clearly. They were also wildly volatile: 80%+ drawdowns were normal.219×) and Tesla (~30×) crushed the index funds — but picking the one winner in advance is the hard part. A plain S&P 500 fund (VOO, ~4×) is what the average buy-everything investor actually got.4.1× and the Info Tech sector (VGT) a remarkable ~9.5× — nearly matching single big-tech names. Going truly global cost you: Total World (VT) managed ~3.4×, international ex-US (VXUS) only ~2.6×, and emerging markets (VWO) ~2.4×. The lost decade for non-US stocks is the clearest story in the data.12.7×, Dubai ~9×, Amsterdam ~9×. The flip side: London's flat USD market couldn't outrun the mortgage interest, so the deposit was effectively wiped out (its bar sits near zero, off the log scale). The Property tab shows the per-city breakdown and a next-10-year forecast.1.1×) sat near or below the inflation line for most of the decade — preserving dollars while quietly losing purchasing power.Sources: Curvo index backtests · SlickCharts · Total Real Returns · Vanguard ETF total returns (VT/VTI/VXUS/VWO/VGT/VYM) · CoinGecko · Global Property Guide · Visual Capitalist. Approximate, rounded. Past performance is not indicative of future results — not financial advice.
The other path · leveraged property
The real-estate version, done properly. Your $100,000 is a 10% deposit on a $1,000,000 home; the bank lends the other $900,000 (interest-only, at the prevailing rate). You rent it out, pay the mortgage interest and running costs from the rent, and keep the capital growth. Here's what your deposit becomes after 10 years — the last decade for real, and a forecast for the next. Leverage cuts both ways.
What your $100k deposit becomes — last 10 years
You put in $100,000 (10%) and borrow $900,000 interest-only. Because you control a $1M asset with $100k, a city's home-price move is multiplied roughly 10× on your deposit — before costs. Each year the model collects gross rent (yield × property value), and subtracts mortgage interest (loan × rate) and running costs (maintenance, management, insurance, property tax, vacancy). Your final position is:
When rent doesn't cover interest + costs the cash flow is negative (“negative gearing”) and is charged against your return — common in low-yield Sydney, Melbourne and Hong Kong, where the bet rides almost entirely on capital growth. The standout is Dubai: a high ~6.8% yield plus solid growth and no property tax turned a ~55% price rise into a multiple of your deposit. London (past decade) is the cautionary tale: roughly flat USD prices couldn't outrun mortgage interest, so the leverage worked in reverse.
A note on the forecast, and on Australia specifically. Over the next decade the gap between markets is driven as much by borrowing cost as by price growth: the UK is heading into rate cuts while Australia's RBA is raising rates, so a Melbourne or Sydney landlord pays materially more interest on the same loan. That is why, even though the research has Melbourne and Sydney appreciating faster than London (and the model now reflects that, at ~4.5%/yr vs London's 2.5%), their leveraged returns stay close: low Australian rental yields (~3–3.5%) plus high mortgage rates make them heavily negative-geared. One big caveat the model leaves out: Australia's negative-gearing tax relief, which lets investors deduct that cash-flow loss against income and recover roughly a third to a half of it — a real-world tailwind that would lift the Australian cities above what's shown here.
Inputs are per-city and research-based (next 10 years assumes higher mortgage rates than the cheap 2015–2021 era, and price growth reverting toward 2–4%/yr):
Sources: Global Property Guide (rental yields) · Numbeo rental yields · Global Property Guide (mortgage rates) · Freddie Mac PMMS · House-price trends · Visual Capitalist (city homes). Interest-only, USD basis. Excludes purchase/sale transaction costs, capital-gains tax, and negative-gearing tax relief — the last of which materially helps high-tax, cash-flow-negative markets like Australia. A researched scenario, not financial advice.
A plan · UK investor
A concrete, research-backed plan for a UK-resident investor putting aside a steady amount each month into a Stocks & Shares ISA. Drag the slider to see what consistent monthly investing compounds into over 30 years, then follow the priority order below. Figures are in GBP, nominal (before ~2.4% inflation).
What it compounds into — 30 years of monthly investing
The plan, in priority order
Hold 3–6 months of expenses in easy-access cash or a Cash ISA (~4–4.5% right now). Never invest money you might need within five years; markets can fall 30%+ in the short term. This is what lets you leave the rest untouched through a crash.
If you're employed in the UK, contribute at least enough to capture the full employer match — it's an instant ~100% return plus tax relief. This is the highest-return move available and comes before the ISA.
Open a Stocks & Shares ISA with a low-cost broker — not a plain Invest/GIA account; only the ISA is tax-free. £1,000/month is £12,000/year, comfortably inside the £20,000 tax-free allowance. Set a monthly deposit and use the broker's auto-invest feature to buy one global all-world fund automatically:
FWRG — Invesco FTSE All-World (Accumulating), 0.15% fee — or VWRP — Vanguard FTSE All-World (Accumulating), 0.22%. Both hold 3,000+ companies across developed and emerging markets; “accumulating” means dividends reinvest automatically. Pick one, not both — that single fund is your whole equity portfolio. No CGT, no dividend or income tax inside the ISA.
While you're a UK tax resident, the ISA beats an unwrapped account by a mile for monthly investing. Foreign-domiciled ETFs that lack UK “reporting fund status” are taxed especially harshly: HMRC treats the entire gain as income at up to 45% — not capital gains at 24% — and you lose the CGT allowance. Outside a wrapper, that's a heavy, avoidable tax drag.
So keep the monthly contributions inside the ISA, and prefer UK-domiciled, reporting-status funds for anything held outside one. If you ever become tax-resident in another country, revisit the wrapper then — the ISA's shelter only works while you're a UK resident.
Lifetime ISA (if you're under 40 and might buy a first UK home): the government adds 25% on up to £4,000/year — but there's a 25% penalty if used for anything but a first home or retirement at 60, so it's a weak fit if you may leave the UK. Higher-rate taxpayer? Extra pension/SIPP contributions get 40% relief and are worth it for money you won't need until retirement.
One global fund, automated, left alone. Don't tinker, don't chase last year's winner. The Investing tab shows why: for most people, owning the whole market beat trying to pick the Nvidia in advance — because you'd also have picked the ones that didn't win.
Route B · save a 10% deposit, then buy a place
Saving £1,000/month in cash (~4%, the sensible home for money you'll need within a few years), here's how long until you've got a 10% deposit. Then a 90% mortgage lets you control the whole property — the Property tab shows what that 10:1 leverage becomes over 10 years.
Excludes transaction costs: UK first-time-buyer stamp duty on a £472k London home ≈ £8.6k, lower or nil on cheaper homes and with first-time-buyer relief. Keep deposit money in a Cash ISA / premium bonds, not shares, if you'll buy within ~3 years.
Route A — keep investing (£1k/mo in the global ISA fund): liquid, diversified, portable across borders, no leverage, no transaction costs. It compounds quietly (the chart above). Best if you value flexibility, might change countries, or don't want to be tied to one city.
Route B — save the deposit, then buy: you spend ~3–4 years building the deposit in cash (a drag — that money grows slowly meanwhile), then leverage 10:1 into one concentrated, illiquid asset. Leverage can multiply gains dramatically (the Property tab shows Lisbon ~12.7× and Dubai ~9× over the last decade) — but it can also wipe the deposit out in a flat market (London, same decade), and you add stamp duty and maintenance.
A few tax wrinkles: a home you live in is your main residence — CGT-free in the UK — and it kills your rent, a real guaranteed return. A buy-to-let instead makes you a landlord with UK tax on the rent to manage. Buying property abroad while you live in the UK adds a foreign-investor stamp-duty surcharge, currency risk, and the hassle of managing it from a distance — usually only worth it once you actually live there.
The sensible hybrid: build the ISA now — it doubles as your deposit fund and keeps growing. When it nears a deposit, decide on life, not spreadsheets: settling somewhere a while → buying your own home is a strong, tax-free, rent-killing move; staying mobile → keep compounding in the portable ISA. You don't have to choose today.
An ISA is tax-free in the UK, but most other countries don't recognise it. If you move abroad and become tax-resident elsewhere, the income and gains inside your ISA may become taxable in your new country, and foreign CGT can apply to assets you still hold. The tax-free wrapper only works while you're a UK resident.
You generally can't transfer a UK pension or ISA into a foreign equivalent, and pensions are locked until retirement age. Be wary of UK-locked products (the LISA penalty) if there's any chance you'll move — a plain global-tracker ISA is the most portable core you can hold.
This is general information, not personal financial advice. Cross-border tax is genuinely complex; speak to a regulated cross-border adviser before any big decision or before moving.
The projection grows your monthly contribution at a constant nominal rate, compounded monthly: Global shares 100% ≈ 7%/yr, Balanced 60/40 ≈ 5%/yr, Cash/bonds ≈ 3%/yr — in line with long-run history and Vanguard's 2026 Capital Markets Model (which currently sees muted US growth-stock returns and more attractive bonds and non-US equities). Real returns are ~2.4% lower after inflation. The “ISA tax saved” figure is a rough estimate of the CGT/dividend tax you'd avoid versus an unwrapped account; your actual saving depends on your tax band.
Sources: UK ISA rules · Vanguard UK S&S ISA · Vanguard Capital Markets Model 2026 · MSE Lifetime ISA · UK tax residence. Not personal financial advice.