I mean, the UK is in the same boat as Germany and Canada - outside of high finance and some American tech companies, salaries are weak and they aren't attracting the cream of the cream.

Plus high paying British firms like BAE, Rolls Royce, and Leonardo Global have Indian offices that pay competitive (£30-40k) salaries for R&D so the incentive of going to the UK is weak, as £60k but California level CoL just doesn't cut it.