working 100% remotely

[LondonManc]

I live in the North of England and usually contract in London. I also have a place in Spain where I'd much rather be. It does occur to me that the travel costs and commute to London from either place is comparable but what occurs to me even more is that if I could somehow work remotely from Spain I could lower my rate to be more competitive to what the banks, etc, are paying for their off-shoring to the likes of Eastern Europe. I doubt they'd wear it though. Most are OK with teh odd day WFH but not all week.

Why lower your rate?

[ChimpMaster]

I live in the North of England and usually contract in London. I also have a place in Spain where I'd much rather be. It does occur to me that the travel costs and commute to London from either place is comparable but what occurs to me even more is that if I could somehow work remotely from Spain I could lower my rate to be more competitive to what the banks, etc, are paying for their off-shoring to the likes of Eastern Europe. I doubt they'd wear it though. Most are OK with teh odd day WFH but not all week.

Banks are probably the most archaic and backward places to work. They will block pretty much every attempt to work at home but with a slight of hand will look to offshore anything they can.

[oliverson]

Why lower your rate?

Because the whole reason to offshore is to reduce costs. Given two contractors asking the same day rate and one of them is in the office all week while the other is 1,500 miles away, which would you choose? There has to be an advantage to them to do it. For me, I'd avoid £ 2k a month in expenses (£ 100 a day), so there's some flexibility there.

[LondonManc]

Because the whole reason to offshore is to reduce costs. Given two contractors asking the same day rate and one of them is in the office all week while the other is 1,500 miles away, which would you choose? There has to be an advantage to them to do it. For me, I'd avoid £ 2k a month in expenses (£ 100 a day), so there's some flexibility there.

Yes, but the trick is to offer that as a last resort.

[MrMarkyMark]

Banks are probably the most archaic and backward places to work. They will block pretty much every attempt to work at home but with a slight of hand will look to offshore anything they can.

Depends who you report into.
My direct report is Singapore based, totally normal to WFH there.

[Hapax]

Because the whole reason to offshore is to reduce costs. Given two contractors asking the same day rate and one of them is in the office all week while the other is 1,500 miles away, which would you choose? There has to be an advantage to them to do it. For me, I'd avoid £ 2k a month in expenses (£ 100 a day), so there's some flexibility there.

You can get the best of both worlds by working remotely four days out of five and turning up on site for day five. The client gets your reassuring physical presence once a week and you only have to put up with the office crap one day in five.

No need to reduce the rate.

[unixman]

This thread has made me regret a little not seeking WFH. Some clients where I have delivered and won trust, but eventually left, turning down an extension in order to stop commuting/living in digs. Never thought of angling for WFH. Sort of assumed it would not succeed. Next time...

[northernladuk]

This thread has made me regret a little not seeking WFH. Some clients where I have delivered and won trust, but eventually left, turning down an extension in order to stop commuting/living in digs. Never thought of angling for WFH. Sort of assumed it would not succeed. Next time...

Yeah but most of the posts have pointed out you need to know what you are doing......

[SlipTheJab]

Yeah but most of the posts have pointed out you need to know what you are doing......

Ouch!

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Just curious, how many days of the year are you in contract, vs how many days looking for work, typically ?

(It doesn't have to be in days, you know what I mean.)

For the first 3 years I was achieving maybe 50% capacity. Partly through laziness and partly due to not wanting to take on longer term contracts. Earned enough to live on and make a small saving but nothing impressive.

The last three years I've taken on longer term projects (3-6 months or more) interspersed with shorter term stuff and picked up repeat business. We wanted to buy a house so knuckled down and worked almost a whole year for one client and then picked up a retainer after that which was nice earner.

Over this time I've been booked up for maybe 10 months of the year (I choose to take December off) with little time spent looking as clients always come down to me. I probably have to turn down more work than I accept but I know a few other good developers I can pass work on to and they reciprocate and pass leads my way.

The last three years I doubled my annual turnover from the first three and had my best year yet this year.

It's a good position to be in. I get plenty of rubbish leads too (people with unrealistic budgets normally) and briefly experimented with publishing my rate why lead to a reduction in leads but improved the quality, though I no longer publish my rate.