Contracting vs Perm

[tl97]

You’re only 24, you can take risks. Build up your skills as a permie, and crucially, build up your professional network, them you’ll be ready to go contracting.

[NotAllThere]

Those old farts were predicting gloom in 2000...

I remember 2000. Rates collapsed to about 60% of late 90s levels and reasonably interesting contracts were far and few between.

if I have a mortgage when I'm 50 I will have failed in life.

Silly. There's all kinds of reasons why it might make sense to retain a mortgage. For example, you have a £2M house with £1M mortgage, you might invest that £1M somewhere else. If the worst comes to the worst, you downgrade to a £1M house to dispose of your mortgage.

Or you might live in a country with tax deductible mortgage interest payments or a wealth tax.

Anyway - for the OP. It's always a good time to go contracting if you've skills that you think clients want to buy.