Contractor knacker yard

[fool]

I do not agree that contracting does not give you an opportunity to 'go up the career ladder'.

You are in control of your own skill set. It takes 24 months, planning and money (something that many contractors are reluctant to part with when it comes to training or certification), to move into a new area in your field. Often it comes quicker than that, certificates and skills set bells ringing with agents when they need people.

If you want to be a solution architect or work in a new code research, plan and pay for it. Don't come here saying the getting old is no fun, because you'll not get much sympathy. Stop relying on the skill set you learned in your twenties when you were a permie.

Getting lazy and set in your ways is no fun, admittedly.

You don't even need to pay for certs, just take a single role at below market rate and do the job. Once you have that experience on your CV and assuming you can actually do the job, the market will open up to you.

Of course, the advantage of contracting if you're in a good field at the top end of rates is that 10 years could be enough to retire assuming you keep your typical lifestyle.

That said, if you actually just keep on the ball, learn the new shiney, you'll do fine as a contractor. People care a lot less when you're on contract whether you fit the mold, they just want someone who can deliver. If you're too lazy to reskill then hopefully you're doing something that'll be popular for a long time.

[expat]

I am still contracting as a developer, and I'm 64. As SO says, there were not many when I started so there are damn few my age who have been devs all their lives.

BTW I did start on COBOL and then did C for a few years and most recently had 15 decent years in Siebel. That's a sunset tech now but then I have a sunset career so I'm OK with that. You can change skills even in contracting. Of course in Olden Times most techies thought their skills would last forever, so if you figured that yours wouldn't, then you were ahead of the bunch. Still, I thought in the 1980s that my COBOL was good for another 5-10 years max, but actually it was good into the 2000s.

You can progress not just to other skills but to other roles. Personally I never wanted to (have been a team leader a couple of times and something called "solution architect" once, but I was tricked into these). I am just glad that IT (not that we used to call it that) has given me a career where I have been able to make a decent living using my intelligence and without the BS and aggro of managing people or the responsibility of a large budget. I rather doubt that is available int the long term for youngsters now.

[uk contractor]

Age is just a number but nowadays many hiring managers feel uncomfortable telling older people what to do so your options are:


1: De-age yourself (dye hair, lose weight, lose anything on your CV which ages you like roles from more than 2 decades ago!).
2: Accept the inevitable that sooner or later you will be replaced with someone much younger/cheaper probably from outside UK

[Pondlife]

1: De-age yourself (dye hair, lose weight, lose anything on your CV which ages you like roles from more than 2 decades ago!).

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[cojak]

Age is just a number but nowadays many hiring managers feel uncomfortable telling older people what to do so your options are:


1: De-age yourself (dye hair, lose weight, lose anything on your CV which ages you like roles from more than 2 decades ago!).
2: Accept the inevitable that sooner or later you will be replaced with someone much younger/cheaper probably from outside UK

Or just go in confident in your skills and experience (although seeing a 40 year old guy with a rich chestnut head of hair is hilarious, admittedly).

[stek]

Age is just a number but nowadays many hiring managers feel uncomfortable telling older people what to do so your options are:


1: De-age yourself (dye hair, lose weight, lose anything on your CV which ages you like roles from more than 2 decades ago!).
2: Accept the inevitable that sooner or later you will be replaced with someone much younger/cheaper probably from outside UK

And don't call the 12 year old Senior PM 'Sonny'....

[expat]

Or just go in confident in your skills and experience (although seeing a 40 year old guy with a rich chestnut head of hair is hilarious, admittedly).

Oh dear. My hair is still dark and I am not overweight. OTOH the MVS VSAM COBOL BAL on my CV may give it away.

[Crossroads]

Perhaps it does range a little from field to field, but I see plenty of older contractors. I'm 39, have been a contractor since my mid-20's.

One reason you might not see so many older contractors is that they have retired whilst still young and healthy. Another is that they might move at different levels in the organisation so you just don't meet them... I've worked with plenty of C-level and just below 'interims' who most people on site did not know were contractors.

I've worked with one particular guy in his late 60's who still puts more in on a daily basis than the average twenty year old, but he is in the minority. His experience and skills also see him command £1000+/day for roles that younger, less experienced contractors would do for £600. He doesn't seem to have too hard a job finding a new gig when he needs to.

Another turned 60 whilst working for me... perhaps more unusual in that he was still reasonably "hands-on" but again his experience was valuable to the particular role I needed filling.

If I'm hiring a contractor, the last thing I am worried about is their age... it might lead to certain preconceptions and potentially skew any hiring discussion with them but I wouldn't discount solely on age.

[MicrosoftBob]

I used to be an accountant, dropping that off the CV cuts a good 30 years off my cv, enough to get my foot in the door

I don't put my age on my CV, so if clients are stupid enough to try and age discriminate based on my CV they get a nasty surprise

[uk contractor]

Or just go in confident in your skills and experience (although seeing a 40 year old guy with a rich chestnut head of hair is hilarious, admittedly).

That might get you past the agent & client & get the actual face to face interview but getting the role is something else again. There is a lot of ageism in IT especially IME some of it comes from agents as they prefer inexperienced candidates who they can exploit financially to the max