I'm a programmer myself (think I've already said in this thread, probably a few years back though) and like allot of jobs how good/bad it is really depends who you work for; I've been making websites, databases and all sorts to some degree since I was about 16 (27 now), got a Uni degree in Computer Science/Business, loads of college IT qualifications, qualifications from Google and other third parties, plus over 3.5 years commercial full time experience with a range of programming languages both front and backend work, also made a load of side projects... which all sounds great but the company I work for won't pay more than 21k, I mean that wouldn't be so bad but they didn't give me a probation review (due 2 years ago) and when I recently asked for a review they made me wait 2 months to tell me they "can't afford" to pay more despite the fact I have saved them 24k within the past few months (much more for the year but that's just one sum I know for definite) so I handed my notice in on Friday and will hopefully get something similar soon... oh and shameless plug but I live in Birmingham and have a really good portfolio if anyone's interested haha, but yeah from my experience if you work in IT you want to work for an IT company, if you work in sales you want to work for a sales company, etc etc. Last company I worked for was pure IT and they valued what I did but now I work for a recruitment company and get treated worse than the chewing gum on their shoes, during the review I was told I hadn't had one as unlike everyone else in the company I was not entitled to reviews pahaha you can just imagine how valued I felt (or should I say didn't feel).
I have a friend who sells cars for a brand of car and used to sell cars for another (not going to name names here but they're both sell similarly priced brands), he sells less cars for this new company and earns over 35k yet at the other place he'd barely scrape 16k, I know work isn't all about money but stuff like this really bugs me. Feels similar to my situation although I'd be happy earning 25k or so, tempted to go into something more sales or recruitment based just so my hard work can directly be seen by reward (commission) but that's if I don't find something similar which I fancy.