It's highly unlikely he's been furloughed. I don't think a big tech company would make the mistake of having staff on that scheme working anyway, they would be in a lot of trouble if they did, but as the limit is £2500 per month I'm sure the OP would be on noticeable less than 80% of his previous pay as a London tech lead if he had been.
The 80% rate of the furlough scheme does seem to have prompted a lot of companies to think this is a suitable rate for a hard times haircut to give thier staff generally though, even they are still working 100%.
I can tell you that some tech companies including the one in which I work (not FAANG sized though) are definitely doing real furloughs by name, the very legal definition- most staff are furloughed 25% of the time and told we are not allowed to work or the company will be liable. Some staff functions are furloughed 100%.
A previous employer cut everyone's salary by 20% during the dot-com bust and I've heard the 20% figure thrown around quite a bit over the past month--with or without a reduction in hours.
It seems to be a figure that a lot of companies settle on as a significant cost savings in the aggregate while not being such a big cut that (most) people can no longer afford to pay their bills or otherwise feel forced to just walk out the door.
The 20% number comes from the expected revenue hit companies are looking at. Honestly, they're doing it because they can get away with it right now. What do you want to bet that many of these 20% salary reductions will be permanent?
In my view, these companies can fuck right off. They're not paying their workers more when they have a great quarter, so why should they pay people less when things aren't going well? I suspect the companies that cut pay / furloughed a significant amount of workers will have a hard time hiring when this is all over.
The reduction in pay comes with a reduction in workload. Which means that for most companies adopting the 20% paycut, they are also transitioning into a 4-day work week. Its hardly a related to some corporate greed trying to squeeze their workers, but a sign of desperate measures for desperate times.
I have a hard time believing that workload is reduced. In theory it makes sense, but companies are not charities, and unless the government makes it the rule that workload gets reduced, I think it's just gonna be a direct paycut.
The 80% rate of the furlough scheme does seem to have prompted a lot of companies to think this is a suitable rate for a hard times haircut to give thier staff generally though, even they are still working 100%.