How Rs 45 lakh salary in Bengaluru offers more luxury than Rs 1.3 crore in London, according to a Google engineer

Agarwal said a Rs 45 LPA salary in Bengaluru brings about Rs 2.7 lakh monthly, enabling comfortable living

A LinkedIn post by Vaibhav Agarwal, a Google software engineer based in Bengaluru, has set off a thoughtful discussion about how salaries really compare across countries once everyday costs are factored in. Instead of looking only at headline numbers, Agarwal framed the debate through Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), arguing that raw currency conversion can be misleading.

In his breakdown, Agarwal compared a salary of Rs 45 lakh per annum in India with an annual pay of £108,000 (around Rs 1.32 crore) in London. While the UK figure looks far bigger on paper, he explained that the lived experience behind those numbers is quite different.

According to him, a Rs 45 LPA package in Bengaluru translates to roughly Rs 2.7 lakh in monthly take-home pay. That kind of income allows for a high level of comfort: a spacious two-bedroom flat in a gated community, domestic help, food and groceries delivered via apps, and frequent cab rides. Agarwal suggested that professionals at this level fall within India’s top one per cent, where convenience and time-saving services are easily affordable.

London, he noted, comes with a different set of trade-offs. A £108,000 salary (about Rs 1.32 crore) leaves an individual with close to £6,100 a month after taxes and national insurance (roughly Rs 7.45 lakh). From that, rent for a fairly basic one-bedroom apartment in Zone 2 can take up around £2,200 (approximately Rs 2.69 lakh). With housing and other costs eating into income, many professionals rely on public transport and manage daily chores like cooking and cleaning on their own. Agarwal summed this up as a comfortable but clearly upper-middle-class lifestyle, not an extravagant one.

He wrapped up his comparison with a line that struck a chord with many readers: “If you want Luxury and Comfort, choose Bengaluru. If you want Global Exposure, Clean Air, and Stronger Currency, choose London.”

The post quickly attracted comments from others who resonated with the PPP argument. One user wrote, “So glad someone talked about PPP. On social media, there are a lot of posts saying this person got 1 or 1.5 crore package and something costs this many crores but when you check in detail, it’s in another country not india. This is equivalent to spreading misinformation.”

Another commenter added a different perspective, saying, “But you also forgot that , earning 45+ LPA in India(in hand by your calculation) is lot harder than getting 108 euro Job in England (actually that just above the average pay per SDE there).”

A third voice highlighted that money isn’t always the main motivation for moving abroad: “People more often with high income don’t go just because of salary , they go for multicultural exposure, learning, get confidence, learning, quality of life,good education and health system, clean air ,water ,low crime, more human values,BTW cleaning our own room ,cooking our food this is our personal choice.”