Tech interviews in the UK. Pay in £, long notice periods.

This is the biggest practical difference, and the one people forget. In the UK your notice period is usually written into your contract and runs one to three months. Senior roles are often a full three. In the US, two weeks is normal. Once you add the interview process on top, the time between accepting an offer and actually starting is often eight to sixteen weeks for a senior role.

What that means for how you run your search:

• Start earlier than feels necessary. The whole thing moves slowly, so give yourself runway.
• Tell a new employer your notice period up front. Three months isn't a dealbreaker here, they expect it, but spring it late and you look disorganised.
• Be ready for “gardening leave.” Some employers send you home on full pay for your notice, often when you're joining a competitor, and you can't start the new job until it ends.
• Remember you're committed once you resign. A long notice cuts both ways, so be sure before you hand it in.

If you're job hunting while still employed, the long notice makes discretion and timing even more important, we cover that in how to interview while you're still employed.

There isn't one “UK interview.” What you face depends a lot on who's hiring:

• Big US tech in LondonGoogle, Meta, Amazon run almost the same loop as in the US: LeetCode-style coding rounds, system design, and behavioural interviews. If you're prepping for one of these, the standard US-style prep applies directly.
• UK-grown companiesFintech, scale-ups, and startups more often use take-home tasks, practical or pairing exercises, and put more weight on whether you fit the team and communicate well. Less raw algorithm pressure, more “can you actually do this job with us.”

So check the company before you prep. A Monzo or Revolut loop and a Google London loop ask for fairly different things. How the loop actually runs at some of London's best-known engineering employers:

These loops describe engineering hiring. Management and leadership candidates (Engineering Manager, Director, VP) meet a similar UK process but a different bar, so pair this page with the leadership interview prep hub and your role guide.

London's tech employers fall into roughly three pay tiers:

• Tier · top

  Quant and big US tech

  Jane Street, Optiver, Citadel, plus Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple, Bloomberg, Palantir and Stripe. Highest pay, US-style interviews, and they sponsor visas.

• Tier · scale-ups

  Scale-ups and fintech

  Monzo, Revolut, Wise, Starling, Cleo, plus AI labs like DeepMind and Wayve. Solid pay, usually some equity, and a wider mix of interview formats. London's real strengths are fintech and AI.

• Tier · startups

  Startups

  Lower base, more equity, and faster, less formal processes. Visa sponsorship is hit or miss, so ask early.

If you need the right to work, the main route into a tech job is the Skilled Worker visa, and only employers with a sponsor licence can offer it. Big tech and most established scale-ups sponsor; smaller startups often can't. The simplest move is to ask the recruiter on the very first call whether the role comes with sponsorship. It takes one sentence and stops you spending weeks on a company that can't actually hire you.

Interviewing in the UK leans structured and competency-based. Larger firms and banks run STAR interviews (Situation, Task, Action, Result) and score your answers against a fixed rubric, so vague stories fall flat. The tone rewards quiet, evidence-backed confidence over loud self-promotion, and overselling can land badly. London splits between fast fintech shops like Monzo and Revolut and the slower, more formal finance and consultancy world, each with its own pace. Right-to-work and Skilled Worker visa questions come up early, often on the first recruiter call, and salary is discussed fairly openly.

The role itself doesn't change at the border. A senior engineer is held to a senior engineer's bar in London just as in San Francisco, so the substance of your prep, the questions, the level, the failure modes, comes from the role-by-role guides. This page is the UK layer on top: pay in pounds, a longer timeline, and a process that shifts with the company. It's also worth reading why strong candidates get rejected, since those mistakes don't care which country you're in.

• 01Levels.fyi, Senior Software Engineer, LondonLondon total-compensation data, including big-tech and quant pay.
• 02Glassdoor UK, Senior Software Engineer, Londonbase-salary ranges and median across London employers.
• 03Notice Periods UK: a guide for tech professionalstypical one-to-three-month tech notice periods and offer-to-start timing.
• 04Notice periods explained: UK vs USthe contrast with US at-will, two-week norms.
• 05Demystifying the backend engineering interview process (Monzo)official Monzo walkthrough of the call, practical task and final loop.
• 06Interview guide for engineers (Deliveroo)official Deliveroo take-home, live coding, system design and behavioural stages.
• 07Revolut's five-stage interview process (eFinancialCareers)the Revolut multi-stage assessment and take-home structure.
• 08Interviews (Wise Jobs)official Wise page on paired coding, take-home and the system design round.
• 09Skilled Worker visa (GOV.UK)authoritative source for UK sponsorship and right-to-work.

Pay, notice and visa details are sourced above. The notes on loops and market conditions reflect widely-reported practice as of 2026, and are meant as a general read rather than precise figures.