https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-f...
In US terms somewhere around $240K USD, before tax.
Even most US devs don’t make $240k USD.
$120k is also an underestimate given that the top tax bracket in the UK is only 45%. If you apply that, you get $132k (Still an underestimate). $132k is roughly in the same ballpark as $155k.
It's not like the difference between the same income in the US and UK is 50%, and even if you were on $120k USD net that's the same as the median gross income of a SWE in the US.
I don't understand where "not that much" is coming from.
Nice house in London/SF = $$$
Kids = $$$
"good education" (I.e. nice schools) = $$$
No student debt for your kids = $$$
Retire early = $$$
This seems like a classic "3 options, pick 2" kind of scenario. You can never have it all at the max level (Except maybe if you're a billionaire).
At that kind of income CoL also doesn't mean that much unless your lifestyle matches your income (I.e. lifestyle inflation). The energy crisis should not significantly affect people with top 1% income.