State of the Market

[Unix]

After the election (UK and US) and when inflation is back to normal levels for a few quarters, interest rates will come down a bit. This is when the Corporations will unleash their capital again. I think this will be in Spring 2025 but that's pure speculation.

With Labour in power I expect to move to public sector teet for a while after this one ends, needs must.

[TheDude]

The person who signs my timesheet has indicated they want to keep me beyond the 20 week engagement limit and has asked how I would feel taking a 3 month sabbatical at the end of this period with the intent to engage me for a further two years.

Nothing guaranteed because the firm are laying people off at the moment but he is trying to force an exemption and I quite fancy 3 months off over Xmas.

[rocktronAMP]

Missed the mortgage payment this month. Things are getting severe.

Oh man!

I am genuinely sorry to hear that. Ideas:

• Talk to Mortgage company right away. I bet you already have. Explain the situatioin
• Ask for a payment holiday.
• If they won't offer a payment holiday, then come back with only interest payment for 6 months.

Right. I am not a financial / consumer expert. When going to an interest-only only please be aware of the debt trap, because you are not repaying the bulk of your mortgage then it is building. You could be getting into an Endowment mortgage situation, which is a No-No in the 21st century! In that case, consider changing the mortgage term, for example 15 years becomes 18 or may be 20 years. YMMV will vary with the mortgage business. If you don't ask, then you don't get.

What you are hoping for in your situation, is that you find lucrative income, that means you can catch up with the repayments.

I think you already know the ultimate solution, which is to sell up your flat/house and then down-size, but is tulipty worse case. The rental market is definitely over competitive.


The happy path and there are some thoughts:

Mortgage companies under pressure from the FCA have a duty to help with you with your situation, this is a positive.
Suppose you land a new contract tomorrow, then you can return to level. It will take time to recover, but how long do need to work to get back to normal?
Be vary of FTC and some Inside IR35 contract with monthly arrear payment schemes. Some umbrella do run this way. Ask for the payment term at the telephone stage!
For this month of June 2024, you won't get paid for it until of 30th July 2024. That is an umbrella company running one-month arrears!
But the issue is that you need to pay the blooming mortgage on the 24th June 2024. Ok? It is not ok.
So I would ask for an advance from the umbrella company. If they won't do it, then keep looking for something else, like permanent work.

Good hunting.

[rocktronAMP]

Excellent suggestions, and extremely helpful!

I don't think I'd personally implement everything on your list: but the effort you've put in there, and the number of good ideas you list, means that surely anyone in this position can find something there that suits them (or inspires them to find their own variants).

The attitude you describe is - of course - what I (and probably most people) had and stuck to when I was first on the bench. But... after months... and months... and months... of this utter ColourfulDutchFlower, it's all too easy to fall off the self-directed, self-disciplining, self-organising, self-maintaining wagon.

Best points for me are:

a) 4. Don't watch the tulipy news! Or if you do, limit it to "have the aliens landed yet? No? Enough then".
b) Switch the F off. That's the hardest, but (if approached right) also quite easy. Because you haven't actually achieved anything all week, it's all too easy to never switch off - as if by some Jedi-power, exerted at 20:02 on Saturday evening, I could make an agent dream a little dream of me and then call me on Monday with a fat juicy contract. The "easy" way to avoid this is to actually do everything you can: to do that, you have to pull yourself out of the hole.

Just been for a long run, by a different, less "pleasant" route than my usual one. But it worked, because I'm bored tulipless of my usual, wooded running route. Then did some weights.

Another thing I found was a quote from an agent here: https://www.contractoruk.com/news/00..._may_2024.html - must be a better agent than any I've dealt with in the past year, given that he actually talks to candidates:


Thank you for good suggestions.

Hi sspt27

Absolutely no problem. Mental health is the key thing.

It just want to be clear about THE NUMBERS GAME. The job market has changed since 2019.
Job openings that open at 9am on the morning, become closed by 2pm on the same day. This is because 1000 of applicants will descend on them.
Recruiters are under a load of pressure to find someone.
It shouldn't be like that honestly, but that is the situation now.
Lot's of the recruiters are just taking the top 10 of the top 1200 job applications. So if you are skills are not relevant to what the client wants, then your CV will be binned.
So control the urge to random fire your CV at just any old openings.

By NUMBERS GAME means that you have ensure your CV is working for you. Hirer and interviewers (I have interviewed people in my current job role), we don't have time to read 7 pages of CV. So ensure that your skills on page 1 and page 2 of your CV. We scan alot. We want to see the skill, and how you used it, what you did?

If you see positions and contracts open and close that is because they have high volume of applicants.
I hear this a lot about Linkedin positions.
I am not a hiring manager, but I support a business manager, who has the power to hire (and fire).
So I have literally seen the leadership team say to us, those who support the decision maker, say out loud: "no juniors", "no people without these skills X, Y and Z" and also "we are not training anybody", which is no suprise to experienced contractors at all.
I don't have any issue with that at all. We are just protecting our time, effort and energy.

My only thing with this is that I was once upon a time crossing from one desired technology to another; and it is severely harder in this climate.
E.g Going from Dot Net to Cloud, or transfering from Ruby programming language to Go language, etc
Let me say 6/ 7 years ago, I wanted to get into cloud computing myself, but I couldn't see an opportunity as a contractor (I was then).
Eventually, I found an entry with a retail bank, who were just beginning their journey into managed public cloud (PaaS) and on-premise technology. In other words, I found a project on the rise, excited to be using Red Hat technologies, AWS, OpenShift. It was great especially for me.

However, how about 2024?!
That is going to be really hard, because if I don't see that AWS on your CV with the STAR (Situation, Task, Action and Results), then I will bin you myself. If I am wanting cloud, then man, I want see evidence of somebody who we can contract with cloud work.
However, you get there, crossing from older technolopgy to a new technology, with certifications. Whilst it is not a substitute for professional experience, if you can demonstrate desire, aptitude and presence of well-being then you can bridge it. You can contribute to public projects, open source, blogs and vide blogs, online articles, and take part in conferences, lightning talks and users meetings. You can contribute to Stack Overflow and even social media. You are the guy/gal also answering AWS questions then you will be noticed. It show us something that you have it.

I will say this because I am working full-time and earning. Consider video learning. If you are earning money now, please put aside £100, £200, £500 for a situation when you are on the bench, in between jobs. This is your Udemy / Pluralsight / Coursera training budget. Use it to buy the training courses and definitely buy one certificate examination (e.g. like the A+ exam series from back in the day). When you are interviewing for a new job, it is really good to say to the client / hiring manager, "I am studying for the official AWS Cloud Practitioner course and I already booked to take the exam in September" that makes you look proactive and interesting and it means that you have a target to focus on. As I alluded to in my other post, keep your mind off the victim-blaming b****x

[rocktronAMP]

rocktronAMP Oh I like it - I’m saving that link for when I see the next poster feel a bit low.

And thanks to you all for your suggestions and links to help and advice. They may help others more than you realise.

My pleasure cojak

Glad to help.

[ladymuck]

I got a rather randomly worded approach via LI yesterday but decided to respond in a positive manner and see where it goes. I now have a Teams call on Tuesday morning to discuss the opportunity.

I suspect the rate will be rubbish, judging by who the client is, but it's something.

[hairymouse]

No sure how you can say that, the IT Perm market is similarly slow as far as i can tell. Maybe it is the end of IT as we know it then for both Perm and Contract. But still too early to say.

I'm looking in the Perm market and can confirm things are very slow. Jobserve has a small fraction of the roles that used to be there. My company recently posted a role for a junior data engineer at £35k remote. We got multiple hundreds of CVs.

[SchumiStars]

This is crazy
Not being funny but seems like you are being paid an offshore rate for an onshore job.

Have you looked at companies like Detica / BAE systems? They are chock full of technical people from top unis.

Oh man!

I am genuinely sorry to hear that. Ideas:

• Talk to Mortgage company right away. I bet you already have. Explain the situatioin
• Ask for a payment holiday.
• If they won't offer a payment holiday, then come back with only interest payment for 6 months.

Right. I am not a financial / consumer expert. When going to an interest-only only please be aware of the debt trap, because you are not repaying the bulk of your mortgage then it is building. You could be getting into an Endowment mortgage situation, which is a No-No in the 21st century! In that case, consider changing the mortgage term, for example 15 years becomes 18 or may be 20 years. YMMV will vary with the mortgage business. If you don't ask, then you don't get.

What you are hoping for in your situation, is that you find lucrative income, that means you can catch up with the repayments.

I think you already know the ultimate solution, which is to sell up your flat/house and then down-size, but is tulipty worse case. The rental market is definitely over competitive.


The happy path and there are some thoughts:

Mortgage companies under pressure from the FCA have a duty to help with you with your situation, this is a positive.
Suppose you land a new contract tomorrow, then you can return to level. It will take time to recover, but how long do need to work to get back to normal?
Be vary of FTC and some Inside IR35 contract with monthly arrear payment schemes. Some umbrella do run this way. Ask for the payment term at the telephone stage!
For this month of June 2024, you won't get paid for it until of 30th July 2024. That is an umbrella company running one-month arrears!
But the issue is that you need to pay the blooming mortgage on the 24th June 2024. Ok? It is not ok.
So I would ask for an advance from the umbrella company. If they won't do it, then keep looking for something else, like permanent work.

Good hunting.

Thanks man. Like most on here, I have found myself in uncomfortable position.

Had house to refurb last year which is were the war chest went. I never usually go into my float but with spialing costs, had no choice.

But it is what it is, David Goggins 40% rule means there is a long way to go for recovery. Need to hold on, it will subside, it has too.

[Fraidycat]

"The market can stay retarded longer than we can stay solvent"

[SussexSeagull]

Hi sspt27

It just want to be clear about THE NUMBERS GAME. The job market has changed since 2019.
Job openings that open at 9am on the morning, become closed by 2pm on the same day. This is because 1000 of applicants will descend on them.

I think most contracts worth worrying about don't go near the job boards anymore.