A new survey by Game Developer magazine has shown that the relative earnings of European games programmers are around 33% lower than saleries earned by their North American counterparts, despite them "steadily increasing".

The report, titled "Game Developer Salary Report: 2004 – 2007", took into account more than 1000 European industry professionals with the majority coming from the UK, but also Germany, Spain, France and the Netherlands.

Feedback from the survey revealed that the most financially rewarding jobs in games development are business and legal work, the average salary for 2006 about EUR 53,000/£36,000.

In second place are production staff, whose wages are an average of EUR 45,000/£30,500, and then by programmers on EUR 40,000/£27,000. Game designers and audio specialists come next with similar earnings of between EUR 34,500 - EUR 34,750/around £23,500, while visual artists is down at EUR 34,300/£23,200.

Coming last are QA staff, who earn an average of just over EUR 26,000/£17,500.

The report states that, "Europeans in the games industry are earning significantly less than their American counterparts. The only discipline that comes close is QA, which is separated by only 7% in 2006".

>> Link - Official Site/Game Developer magazine