State of the Market

[ladymuck]

https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aai...f-abcea4857c1f

KPMG and REC, UK Report on Jobs: Salary growth sustained, but at slower rate as demand for staff declines

[WTFH]

https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aai...f-abcea4857c1f

KPMG and REC, UK Report on Jobs: Salary growth sustained, but at slower rate as demand for staff declines

So if we ignore the Covid trough and subsequent spike, it looks like a gradual decline since about 2013.

[ladymuck]

So if we ignore the Covid trough and subsequent spike, it looks like a gradual decline since about 2013.

Yeah, pretty much

[OzzieExpat]

Well just had an offer of a perm position. Given I've just done my longest ever bench time (4 months) in 28 years I think I'll take it. I've not had anything on the contract side. I think I'm lucky to have been offered anything at all.

[willendure]

I worry about the quality of computer science degrees at some universities and how well they really prepare students for the world of work. I see many poor CVs from computer science grads. In the next 3-5 years there will be a lot more early career people in the market including those coming out of numerous three month boot camps. I'm guessing prospects might not be so good as expected when supply is increasing faster than demand.

Poor CV does not surprise me as those with a CS inclination are often really bad at English. In my final year at uni, I handed my supervisor my final year project draft. I expected him to provide some criticism on the computer science side of it. Instead he marked all the spelling mistakes and gramatical errors in red pen. He gave me a book titled "How to write a dissertation", and told me he won first prize for his PhD after reading this book. So I just read the book and followed the advice. My very well written project received first prize. I think there might have been some decent computer science stuff in there too.

But I take your point. IT contractors have been visibly making a lot of money for the last 20 years, it is not surprising that a lot more people are training for it, and we may have reached a point where there are too many. Thats part of the business cycle though isn't it? Oversupply, price drop, many actors leave a market, things pick up again and the stronger actors remain.

[rocktronAMP]

Well just had an offer of a perm position. Given I've just done my longest ever bench time (4 months) in 28 years I think I'll take it. I've not had anything on the contract side. I think I'm lucky to have been offered anything at all.

Well at least this something of an income and possibly just in time for you. At least, you have staved a hole in the bleeding warchest.

Disclaimer: I am a permie, but in the last two days my LinkedIn just jumped up for *SC cleared* contracts: tech lead, senior dev, but for Inside IR35. I am actually moving up to solution architect in my current job. The rates were £500-550pd in one. So not too shabby for GOV.UK, but I'd want to go with my own umbrella solution: Clarity and for essentially more doe to cover the risk of bench time. All promised 10months to 2 years work.

[OzzieExpat]

Well at least this something of an income and possibly just in time for you. At least, you have staved a hole in the bleeding warchest.

Disclaimer: I am a permie, but in the last two days my LinkedIn just jumped up for *SC cleared* contracts: tech lead, senior dev, but for Inside IR35. I am actually moving up to solution architect in my current job. The rates were £500-550pd in one. So not too shabby for GOV.UK, but I'd want to go with my own umbrella solution: Clarity and for essentially more doe to cover the risk of bench time. All promised 10months to 2 years work.

Yeah... they perm salary isn't too far behind contract and another 2 years and I can retire. Hopefully Starmer won't fiddle with pensions too much.

[codedbypaul]

Unfortunately the tech test ones usually end up like this. It can be really frustrating, as they usually take some time to get through. Then there is always the question of how good to make it and how much effort to put it.

Wish they’d have proper tests like ‘upgrade this old app with dependencies that are 4 years out of date’. Or ‘refactor these tests that still use Enzyme to use react testing library’. I’d breeze through those as that’s been 50% of my last two roles.

[fakenick]

Well at least this something of an income and possibly just in time for you. At least, you have staved a hole in the bleeding warchest.

Disclaimer: I am a permie, but in the last two days my LinkedIn just jumped up for *SC cleared* contracts: tech lead, senior dev, but for Inside IR35. I am actually moving up to solution architect in my current job. The rates were £500-550pd in one. So not too shabby for GOV.UK, but I'd want to go with my own umbrella solution: Clarity and for essentially more doe to cover the risk of bench time. All promised 10months to 2 years work.

I wondered what these GOV dev contracts paid cause they never list rates, lower than I expected for senior/lead! Then again I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, doesn’t seem worth it to me when plenty of middling UK companies will offer 100k perm salary

[squarepeg]

I wondered what these GOV dev contracts paid cause they never list rates, lower than I expected for senior/lead! Then again I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, doesn’t seem worth it to me when plenty of middling UK companies will offer 100k perm salary

Market rates + your negotiating skills. But since they are inside IR35 the umbrella company takes a cut and there is limited scope for claiming expenses and if you live far from the office you cannot claim travel expenses. Someone I used to work with was loosing a day's pay every week, because she had to travel across the country for meetings that could've been done on Zoom. The only advantage of those contracts is that once you have clearance it is easier to move to another role that requires clearance.