Contracting - go for higher rate or repeated business?

[mudskipper]

£700 a day looks pretty ambitious. You see plenty of London .Net jobs advertised at the 3-400 day you're getting in Manchester and even lower.

[ShandyDrinker]

£700 a day looks pretty ambitious. You see plenty of London .Net jobs advertised at the 3-400 day you're getting in Manchester and even lower.

I'd agree with that. £700 a day is high for the Microsoft stack. Even for specialities such as WPF/MVVM/Prism etc 600-650 would be considered good. I'd be very happy with £700 if I could get it in the current market.

[northernladuk]

nothing will change except the way we draw (or not) funds?

You've been around the forums long enough to know better than that surely. Maybe spend a little less time buggering about in General and take some more notice of the more serious stuff?

[fool]

For £700 per day expect to have little life as the client will want their pound of flesh and more. If you get the opportunity I would recommend doing it for a while as what you can learn in those contracts is priceless.

I haven't experienced this. In fact the lower rates are gerenally worse because they don't know how to gauge value over just watching people look busy.

You will be expected to know your tulip though.

[diseasex]

I'd agree with that. £700 a day is high for the Microsoft stack. Even for specialities such as WPF/MVVM/Prism etc 600-650 would be considered good. I'd be very happy with £700 if I could get it in the current market.

400pd+ in Manc are hard to get ( not so common). So is 700 in London probably. It's more of a goal than a realistic thing at this moment.

But London is not my point. I was just thinking whether should I hunt for smaller clients and service them or should I just opt for higher rates and live comfortably as it is.
Option 1 would require proper gigs selection for years to come to build the clientbase. So Not an easy one - probably would have to meet someone that did this and ask him how he did it.

Option 2 would require different contracts set to get the right stack of skills for that 600-700 - finance front office , real time trading etc. I don't think I should be wasting time trying to achieve both and should focus on something.

[SueEllen]

The answer is "How long is a piece of string?"

[ShandyDrinker]

I haven't experienced this. In fact the lower rates are gerenally worse because they don't know how to gauge value over just watching people look busy.

You will be expected to know your tulip though.

Depends on who the client is and in many circumstances the team you are in. At the IB I was recently at you'd see one team doing a strict 9-5/5:30 and then on the next bank of desks the expectation being completely different. I'd agree with being expected to know your stuff.

From experience though I've found that small clients have often been harder contracts due to the pressure of delivering a lot for very little.

[ShandyDrinker]

400pd+ in Manc are hard to get ( not so common). So is 700 in London probably. It's more of a goal than a realistic thing at this moment.

But London is not my point. I was just thinking whether should I hunt for smaller clients and service them or should I just opt for higher rates and live comfortably as it is.
Option 1 would require proper gigs selection for years to come to build the clientbase. So Not an easy one - probably would have to meet someone that did this and ask him how he did it.

Option 2 would require different contracts set to get the right stack of skills for that 600-700 - finance front office , real time trading etc. I don't think I should be wasting time trying to achieve both and should focus on something.

Only you will know what's right for you and your business.

Early in my career I tried for option 1 by building up a number of small clients, delivering and keeping rates competitive to keep those clients coming back. This is great for a while until someone is more local, cheaper, more experienced, you name it... and then you find yourself out of a contract. I'm not saying the client is wrong to do this but I think it's difficult to keep a happy balance so that all sides feel they're getting a good deal. Before you know it you've spent a few years coasting.

My approach now is to find your niche and stick with it while the money is still in that particular skillset. For the people I know that have followed this approach, it has worked out very well for them.

[diseasex]

Only you will know what's right for you and your business.

Early in my career I tried for option 1 by building up a number of small clients, delivering and keeping rates competitive to keep those clients coming back. This is great for a while until someone is more local, cheaper, more experienced, you name it... and then you find yourself out of a contract. I'm not saying the client is wrong to do this but I think it's difficult to keep a happy balance so that all sides feel they're getting a good deal. Before you know it you've spent a few years coasting

So you're saying it's satisfying but didn't work out in longer term ?
I'm dreaming of making something big . Be paid for large scale system that I designed, have a group of people that build it for me or something similar. Maybe bidding on tenders is the way to do this ?
Contracting is satisfying financially , but isn't the the real business, I want. I appreciate nobody will give me answer to that here , but maybe share some experience I can use

[northernladuk]

So you're saying it's satisfying but didn't work out in longer term ?
I'm dreaming of making something big . Be paid for large scale system that I designed, have a group of people that build it for me or something similar. Maybe bidding on tenders is the way to do this ?
Contracting is satisfying financially , but isn't the the real business, I want. I appreciate nobody will give me answer to that here , but maybe share some experience I can use

Show me a contractor that didn't have dreams like this in their first few gigs that are happily just contracting years later. If you have to ask where to start I can't help thinking its not going to work. The natural go getters will already be ahead of you.

If you do want to start though have a think about what your clients want and can offer rather than what you want to do. You'll spot a model that you can then start to work on to evolve a saleable product.

Again though I do think you need to fully understand what is going to hit us in 18 months time because any thing you want to do know is likely to change considerably in a short time.