State of the Market

[quackhandle]

https://www.business-live.co.uk/ente...es-92-29790071

'CEO Dirk Hahn stated that market conditions were "increasingly challenging... with low confidence levels and longer-than-normal 'time-to-hire'."'

What a great name, should be actor.

qh

[Fraidycat]

Could be worse, we could be grads with tulip ton of debt looking for work:

Grad debt = Car loan, but no Repo man if you cant make the payments

Lots of folks with 500K+ mortgage debt these days.

[avonleigh]

Check out the legendary recruiter-on-recruiter posts going on about the Hays financial results.

The short version is Hays tried to undercut everyone to keep the lights on and its had disastrous results for them and the recruitment ecosystem.

Hays is a badly run organisation. I worked for them on replacing their HR system and the project was shelved after 4 weeks of UAT. How much money they must have wasted on that.

[WTFH]

Grad debt = Car loan, but no Repo man if you cant make the payments

Lots of folks with 500K+ mortgage debt these days.

Grad debt + unaffordable housing = major problem for the under 40s.

500k+ mortgage debt = poor financial management, living outside your means… but blame the kids and tell them they have it so easy. Buy now, pay later works up to the point that someone has to do the paying.

[dsc]

Grad debt = Car loan, but no Repo man if you cant make the payments

Lots of folks with 500K+ mortgage debt these days.

How big is a car loan vs grad debt? Also it's not their only debt though, add that to a mortgage debt, car loan etc. Fecked at the start doesn't quite describe it well enough.

[dsc]

Check out the legendary recruiter-on-recruiter posts going on about the Hays financial results.

The short version is Hays tried to undercut everyone to keep the lights on and its had disastrous results for them and the recruitment ecosystem.

I was via Hays recently, when they started pushing for invoices which were only a few days behind it got me thinking...

[GigiBronz]

New contractor devs recruited to my team, some have been fired and replaced for underperformance, some politics involved.

All are indian/pakistani. I remain the only British person on my team at my UK Government role (14 people on my team). In the wider project I think there are well over 100 people, I only know of two other British developers.

All roles are within the UK, nobody is allowed to work from overseas although it is remote.

I would accept the low rate theory but they're all contractors and the role was advertised at the same rate as everyone else.

If this is representative of the market as a whole then they're not outsourcing to India/Pakistan, people from India/Pakistan are moving to the UK and then are applying for contractor jobs here and being granted them.

The recruitment agency is all Indian staff.

If I wasn't there I expect they'd hold the standup in hindi. I've joined meetings before and heard them talking it.

What does this mean about the future of development roles within the UK?

This.

I have been out of a contract for 1y+ now, in this period the number of sensible conversations that could have lead to a contract - I can count them on the fingers of one hand. Either the rates are too low, they are expecting a contractor to come to central London on 500pd inside ir35 or just you do not hear anything from them. (Backend dev with some frontend skills)
Buddy being in central London is £10 in travel expenses and £20 in meals per day(some garbage food, decent meals are more than that), your rate does not allow for that unless you live on a shoestring. A half decent 1 bed flat in a non-stabby area is 2.2k with bills at least.
I would not mind an inside IR35 contract that requires limited travel but having sensible expectations with the clients / agents today is a hard ask. Most of the time it is £450pd inside, 3days + in the office, central London. Death march as they already need someone yesterday.

I've been subletting apartments in the airbnb in the meanwhile (market is dead there also, or in a sharp decline, rates 30% down at least) and also rented rooms in East London for a friend. (occasionally just for fun and the experience of it)

At least 50% of the people inquiring IN SE London for room market are of S Asian descent on some form of short term visa. How are they so many I do not know. I've seen data analysts on £25k, business analysts on £50k and usually in-between those figures. How you can survive on that in London I do not know either.

There are not enough roles to go round, we've went through a round of layoffs also, IT is already a saturated market but despite this the gov seems to be continuing to issue sponsorship visa in a field where there is no lack of talent.

It can only let me believe what the conspiracy people say is correct, they replacing the free thinkers and the ones that can oppose the tyrannical government with a mass of subservient people that do as told.

I am done, leaving next month. Closing everything up. If I were to take a permanent role now in London on 4k I would be working month to month with no escape in sight.
I am happy that I have managed to develop another business and have run that somehow profitable for the past three years, some learned lessons and life experiences to remember. But the profit margins are hard to justify keeping at it, my mental health just can't take it anymore. I am done. I am out.

[sreed]

Spot on.

No one will say it (for fear of being labelled racist) but over the past 7-8 years tens of thousands of experienced middle-aged IT people from the developing world have moved to the UK using the student visa route (buy a 1 year masters followed by a 2 year visa, then a work permit leading to ILR and a UK passport), as dependents of students (again on the route from visa to passport), on work permits from employers hiring from overseas, etc.

These people are moving to settle permanently and will come irrespective of what the economy is doing, how many jobs are available, etc. as their end goal is settling their family here and getting everyone a UK passport.

The sheer volume of IT folk making their way here has had a huge impact on the relatively small IT job market in the UK, it was bound to.

To be absolutely clear, I do not blame the immigrants who came over, they were simply responding to incentives, liberalised visa routes, etc. and looking to better the lives of their families. I’d do the same in their place.

[sadkingbilly]

It can only let me believe what the conspiracy people say is correct, they replacing the free thinkers and the ones that can oppose the tyrannical government with a mass of subservient people that do as told.

I am done, leaving next month. Closing everything up. If I were to take a permanent role now in London on 4k I would be working month to month with no escape in sight.
I am done. I am out.

Please be careful that the exit mechanism doesn't impact your nether regions as you pass through.

[GigiBronz]

Spot on.

No one will say it (for fear of being labelled racist) but over the past 7-8 years tens of thousands of experienced middle-aged IT people from the developing world have moved to the UK using the student visa route (buy a 1 year masters followed by a 2 year visa, then a work permit leading to ILR and a UK passport), as dependents of students (again on the route from visa to passport), on work permits from employers hiring from overseas, etc.

These people are moving to settle permanently and will come irrespective of what the economy is doing, how many jobs are available, etc. as their end goal is settling their family here and getting everyone a UK passport.

The sheer volume of IT folk making their way here has had a huge impact on the relatively small IT job market in the UK, it was bound to.

To be absolutely clear, I do not blame the immigrants who came over, they were simply responding to incentives, liberalised visa routes, etc. and looking to better the lives of their families. I’d do the same in their place.

Because the economy and how it has been setup always needs a bigger fool to be able to keep going. The issue is that they have taken away sound money in 1971 when the $ delinked from gold and it has allowed them to tax you through inflation.
The inflation has not been from the reason they say it has been but a deliberate government policy. They do not need new taxes, they are already taxing you to death.

The aim is to bankrupt everyone and take away freedoms and whatever is left of the "free world". You are now the boiling frog, the last stage of the cycle. Some people are noticing but not enough.







Productivity has diverged from compensation in 1971, coincidence? I think not.



It has been there all along for who has eyes to see and the fact nobody talks about it, it should tell you of how corrupt everything is.