State of the Market

[eek]

I can only give my recent experience on this and that is its pretty buoyant.

I was served notice mid contract with a weeks notice on Tuesday last week, my CV was in at half a dozen clients by Thursday, and two interviews confirmed. Interviewed one of them last Friday and got offered on the way home.

Points which may be salient are, I was terminated mid contract by a FS Client (perhaps indicative of that current sector), I'm based oop North, Yorkshire to be precise and all the immediate interest I had was with non FS companies.

and your skill set is?

[stevieshaker]

and your skill set is?

BA

[ShandyDrinker]

I can only give my recent experience on this and that is its pretty buoyant.

I was served notice mid contract with a weeks notice on Tuesday last week, my CV was in at half a dozen clients by Thursday, and two interviews confirmed. Interviewed one of them last Friday and got offered on the way home.

Points which may be salient are, I was terminated mid contract by a FS Client (perhaps indicative of that current sector), I'm based oop North, Yorkshire to be precise and all the immediate interest I had was with non FS companies.

BA

Congrats on getting the new role.

Perhaps oop North is busy or it's easier to get new roles as a BA. All I know is that in London and the South East the competition for roles in my line of work (C#/SQL/Risk/etc) has been fierce whereas in the South West (where I live) there has just been a dearth of roles generally.

Luckily I did get a new role last month too but from what I'm seeing and hearing it's still tough out there.

[LondonManc]

I don't necessarily agree with you about contract opportunities even if we do leave. All that will happen then is companies will cry skills shortage and more will be brought in from India and the usual suspects.

We are facing a race to the bottom right now as banks in particular try to control costs. As I stated on another thread why would you pay London rates for people when you can get equally good quality people in locations such as Dublin for lower cost.

Only so many people will work in Dublin for lower rates than London- it's not a cheap city for live in. Poland and India have proven quality issues

[eek]

Only so many people will work in Dublin for lower rates than London- it's not a cheap city for live in. Poland and India have proven quality issues

Yep... I know rates in Dublin are lower than the UK but I would hardly call it a cheaper place to live....

[ShandyDrinker]

Only so many people will work in Dublin for lower rates than London- it's not a cheap city for live in. Poland and India have proven quality issues

Yes... but you're ignoring the people that actually live in Dublin already - admittedly they struggle to fill the roles over there as the talent pool can only be so large.

Not sure about the proven quality issues, particularly with respect to Poland. The Polish software developers I've worked with have usually been very good. Not sure of the quality if you're offshoring the work to Poland though.

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

Have spoken to about 30 agents over the last month and the consensus is that the market is generally dead. You may be lucky but for the majority it is rough out there. Hope you made hay and are now enjoying the sun!

[Rabotnik]

Do agents use contractors to set market rates? Just had 2 calls in a row pretending to have jobs for me which I think were some kind of research calls. The first guy I could barely understand due to his thick Indian accent, but he was trying to see if I would accept 400pd for a role. I tried to be as slippery as possible, then he said everyone else he spoke to was quoting 350-400, so I said fine sure. Then when I tried to get more detail as to who the client was and what exactly they were hiring for, he said he'd send me an email, and surprise, surprise, no email.

Then another person called me following up on a mass email she sent for a role paying 450pd. She sounded really disinterested and claimed now the client changed their budget and could only pay 400pd, so would I accept? Then when I said OK she slipped up and said "OK I'll see if I get any interest from anyone...oh I mean the client.", so she wasn't trying to fill a role she was just checking if I would take 400 for that kind of role.

Is this a thing or am I going bench-crazy?

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

Do agents use contractors to set market rates? Just had 2 calls in a row pretending to have jobs for me which I think were some kind of research calls. The first guy I could barely understand due to his thick Indian accent, but he was trying to see if I would accept 400pd for a role. I tried to be as slippery as possible, then he said everyone else he spoke to was quoting 350-400, so I said fine sure. Then when I tried to get more detail as to who the client was and what exactly they were hiring for, he said he'd send me an email, and surprise, surprise, no email.

Then another person called me following up on a mass email she sent for a role paying 450pd. She sounded really disinterested and claimed now the client changed their budget and could only pay 400pd, so would I accept? Then when I said OK she slipped up and said "OK I'll see if I get any interest from anyone...oh I mean the client.", so she wasn't trying to fill a role she was just checking if I would take 400 for that kind of role.

Is this a thing or am I going bench-crazy?

happens everytime the market gets this tulipty

[Rabotnik]

happens everytime the market gets this tulipty

Ah damn, that was exactly what I thought, they are trying to push the rates down . I just thought maybe I was jumping to conclusions.