Want to earn more? Learn Java, move to the US and work in the finance sector

Also, make sure you study at Imperial College rather than Keele

Study at Imperial College, learn Java and seek a position in the finance sector in the US. That's the advice of crowd-sourced pay data website Emolument.com in its latest survey of pay and conditions across the IT sector.

According to Emolument, Java developers (not surprisingly) top the earnings tables, earning an average of £51,000 per annum - £20,000 more than lowly PHP and ASP.Net developers. C++ developers are not too far behind, earning an average of £49,000, but work in the finance sector pays vastly more than anywhere else.

Finance-sector developers earn an average of £52,000, according to Emolument, while app, web and e-commerce developers earn an average of £11,000 less. The public sector, meanwhile, is not the place to be for a high basic wage for developers, averaging annual pay of £33,000, with the media not much better at £36,000.

And, while developers in the UK are the second-highest paid of all the countries surveyed by Emolument, with an average developer pay of £41,000, the US is (perhaps not surprisingly) the place to be, topping the table with pay more than one-third higher at £66,000. Ireland comes third with average pay of £35,000, while developers in Spain earn a paltry £21,000 average annual pay.

However, in order to max out incomes, developers in the UK will need to plan carefully where they study, suggests the survey. Graduates of Imperial College in London top the earnings tables with an average developer salary of £53,000, with University College London graduates £8k behind on £45,000.

Outside London, prospective developers need to consider Bristol University, Oxford University and Cambridge, in that order, while Newcastle University graduates earn an average £20,000 less than graduates of Imperial College at just £33,000, according to Emolument.

"It seems that the perfect formula is to graduate from Imperial College before getting a job as a Java developer at a top finance firm. And move to the US," said Alice Leguay, COO of Emolument.

She continued: "It is striking to see how inefficient this market is when it comes to salaries, with a very uneven distribution curve. In this growing market, in the early stages of their careers, developers should constantly balance working for the right company, with satisfying their salary demands, ideally combining the two further on in their careers."