Clearance Worth? Perm-Contractor Advice

[tillytalker]

Hi All,

[SimonMac]

Hi All,

Sorry to be yet another newbie poster with similar questions! But I'm just looking for advice and have seen other posts saying recruitment agencies aren't a good place to be receiving advice from regarding transition from perm to contracting.

I am relatively inexperienced in the sense of only three years experience but I have been involved in some big projects/implementations and have a lot of tech experience at two worldwide known organisations. I hold DV Clearance, I am primarily a Wintel/Linux engineer (I use both as an in-depth system administrator), i hold MCSE, CCA, ITIL and CCNA certifications (aswell as holding a first class networking degree), I am tempted to go into contracting for the convenience factor. I am under no disillusion that I would walk into a great rate but what type of rate do you think I'd be expecting anywhere outside of London?


Does DV Clearance hold any value in contracting, in your opinion? Theres a high chance I will be able to transition to contracting within the public sector where I understand they offer 12 month contracts, would you advise for/against doing so?

Thank you for any response, it'll be much appreciated.

DV can be a big plus and can bump up the salary but depends where in the world you are, little point having DV here in Yorkshire, but if you are around the usual suspects it could pay off

[malvolio]

Not that much call for DV outside London, tbh, and the sites that need it tend not to advertise too loudly; the obvious exception is our friends in Cheltenham but even they don't say who they are. Also, depending on why you have DV, it may (in fact probably will) lapse as soon as you leave your current post so it's up to your current employer and the new gig's SSO whether or not it can be transferred. And despite rumours to the contrary, clearance does not necessarily equal income; HMG is well aware of market rates

That said, with your technical background and current DV, you are well ahead of the game in a lot of HMG roles; don't forget that you can only require clearance for a role if the role is either shorter than the usual time required for clearance or if the worker cannot be supervised. Much as I hate the idea, there is a "Security Cleared Jobs" group on LinkedIn; start from there.

Usual other caveats apply though. Don't go contracting for money, don't assume your gig will last longer than your notice period (or even less than that) and don't assume you'll be working more than seven months a year. And read the guides...

[sal]

My 2p - 3 years of experience in Wintel is relatively low, on top of that, you say it's project based, where the real Wintel skills are usually better learned in BAU. Where you have to mop up the mess created by botched projects. The thing is there are gazillion generic Wintel engineers out there and the contract roles usually demand a decent amount of side skills like VMWare/SQL/Exchange/Citrix.

Even if you somehow managed to gather a superb Wintel skills in 3 years as permie you will have hard time getting past the Agents, who value the on paper experience a great deal and will most likely just bin your CV if applying to a contract role.

Quick way to find out is to just apply to a bunch of ads and see how many callbacks you get.

[Scruff]

From what I know about clearances, is that if you hold one (SC /DV) you should not be advertising the fact, since it can jeopardise the clearance.