State of the Market

[sreed]

This is truly terrible:


Lead Test Analyst

6m inside IR35

Remote, with occasional site visits (South Wales)

£160pd rate (Umbrella)

The rates are compressed due to NHS budget availability. The role needs a site visit to collect and return your IT equipment.

You’ll be required to work on a full-time basis between the hours of 8am – 6pm, Monday to Friday, 7.5 hours per day, 37.5 hours per week (Start/end times will be confirmed on day 1 of the contract). The successful candidate must work solely for the client during the hours stated above.

I know these things aren't entirely accurate but on-line calculator tells me this is the equivalent of about a 28k a year permanent job without the benefits and with line management responsibilities.

The NHS have form for this. Last summer they had a PM role on PSR which (after being shortlisted) I was told pays £240/day inside! The recruiter that I spoke to was quite apologetic as she herself had got me the exact same kind of role in a public sector dept for more than double that day-rate 6-7 months earlier.

When I asked her how do they get decent candidates at these rates she said NHS roles attract a lot more applications than normal PS roles, for whatever reason. And the budget is set in stone and derived from perm pay bands so there's no movement on that.

[willendure]

This is truly terrible:


Lead Test Analyst

6m inside IR35

Remote, with occasional site visits (South Wales)

£160pd rate (Umbrella)

The rates are compressed due to NHS budget availability. The role needs a site visit to collect and return your IT equipment.



You’ll be required to work on a full-time basis between the hours of 8am – 6pm, Monday to Friday, 7.5 hours per day, 37.5 hours per week (Start/end times will be confirmed on day 1 of the contract). The successful candidate must work solely for the client during the hours stated above.

I know these things aren't entirely accurate but on-line calculator tells me this is the equivalent of about a 28k a year permanent job without the benefits and with line management responsibilities.

8am-6pm is 10 hours. Maybe that is just the core hours period during which your 7.5 hours of work must take place.

My wife works for the NHS. Recently she had a student doing a work placement. The student looked up their own medical records and they kicked them out because of it. What a daft system! Just get the access controls right so that you cannot look up your own records if that is not allowed. Instead they built a system that detects if you do look them up and reports you!

if user.id == record.id then
raise access exception

not

if user.id == record.id then
log security breach

£160pd - they will get what they paid for (and it will cost them more than if they paid for it properly in the first place).

[escapeUK]

8am-6pm is 10 hours. Maybe that is just the core hours period during which your 7.5 hours of work must take place.

My wife works for the NHS. Recently she had a student doing a work placement. The student looked up their own medical records and they kicked them out because of it. What a daft system! Just get the access controls right so that you cannot look up your own records if that is not allowed. Instead they built a system that detects if you do look them up and reports you!

if user.id == record.id then
raise access exception

not

if user.id == record.id then
log security breach

£160pd - they will get what they paid for (and it will cost them more than if they paid for it properly in the first place).

People have a legal right to see their own records, so it is a crazy policy.

Things would have be be pretty desperate to work for £160pd. Less than Tesco pays to stack shelves, I would suspect.

[sreed]

People have a legal right to see their own records, so it is a crazy policy.

Things would have be be pretty desperate to work for £160pd. Less than Tesco pays to stack shelves, I would suspect.

£160/day inside through an umbrella is (as per Paystream's calculator) £2,478/month net which grosses up to an annual PAYE salary of £36,409 on a standard tax code with no deductions. If you adjust for 5 weeks annual leave that goes down to 33k.

Tesco store colleague pay starts at £12.02/hour (outside London) which for a 40 hour week adds up to almost exactly a 25k annual salary. Add on pension contributions (match up to 7.5%) you can bump it up to just shy of 27k.

Pretty close tbh, though I'd still pick a desk-based remote job over one that requires your physical presence 100% of the time.

[escapeUK]

£160/day inside through an umbrella is (as per Paystream's calculator) £2,478/month net which grosses up to an annual PAYE salary of £36,409 on a standard tax code with no deductions. If you adjust for 5 weeks annual leave that goes down to 33k.

Tesco store colleague pay starts at £12.02/hour (outside London) which for a 40 hour week adds up to almost exactly a 25k annual salary. Add on pension contributions (match up to 7.5%) you can bump it up to just shy of 27k.

Pretty close tbh, though I'd still pick a desk-based remote job over one that requires your physical presence 100% of the time.

You forgot holiday, sick pay, oh and the pension contributions they match upto the 7.5%. No mental stress. I actually knew someone, not a desk worker, was made redundant, and I bumped into him at Tesco giving out sandwiches samples. He said this was the best job he ever had, as when he goes home he can forget about it all, and any problems left at the end of his shift, the next shift picks up. So no worry at all.

Another great post on the Telegraph. I think they summed it up really well, and this is why I see the UK as having no future. No good one anyway.


Labour's 10-point growth plan:

1. Encourage anyone who makes a significant tax contribution to leave the UK.

2. Welcome into the UK anyone who promises to make no economic contribution at all..

3. Publicly insult potential foreign investors.

4. Introduce a range of measures to discourage employers from employing anyone.

5. Systematically drain the private sector of investment capital.

6. Provide public sector employees with pay rises on demand.

7. Invite the EU to propose some helpful new regulations that we could adopt.

8. Resume foreign aid contributions to those who are violently hostile to Western interests.

9. Increase the national debt, specifically for the purposes of reinforcing proven failure.

10. If all else fails, impose arbitrary net zero targets.

[SussexSeagull]

I do think after 14 years, a new government at least have the right to be giving a fair hearing. I just see a lot of people who will never be happy with a Labour government whatever they do.

[sreed]

If you read my post properly, I adjusted for holidays and the 7.5% match. So it's still 27k Vs 33k. Not saying £160pd is a good rate for a 'Lead Test Analyst' but within those numbers I'd still much prefer a desk based remote role compared to working in a Tesco store.

As for the points you've mentioned, the Tories over 14 years have contributed to all of them to some degree, not least their total abandonment of immigration control, racking up national debt, covid corruption, taking taxes to new highs while plumbing new lows on efficiency in public spend. And of course economically illiterate Net Zero regulations like the current EV mandate.

I don't expect much from Labour (or government in general) but if they can set tax rates, reliefs, etc. that last the lifetime of this parliament, and relax planning rules so development isn't effectively banned or held hostage by NIMBYs and bat colonies, I'd be happy with that.

All said and done, in a democracy like ours, we get the government we vote in. The electorate (including me and those of us that chose not to vote) voted in 14 years of Tory rule and have voted in Labour for the following 5. So in that sense, we deserve what the Tories did with their time in power and will deserve the fruits of what Labour do with theirs.

You forgot holiday, sick pay, oh and the pension contributions they match upto the 7.5%. No mental stress. I actually knew someone, not a desk worker, was made redundant, and I bumped into him at Tesco giving out sandwiches samples. He said this was the best job he ever had, as when he goes home he can forget about it all, and any problems left at the end of his shift, the next shift picks up. So no worry at all.

Another great post on the Telegraph. I think they summed it up really well, and this is why I see the UK as having no future. No good one anyway.


Labour's 10-point growth plan:

1. Encourage anyone who makes a significant tax contribution to leave the UK.

2. Welcome into the UK anyone who promises to make no economic contribution at all..

3. Publicly insult potential foreign investors.

4. Introduce a range of measures to discourage employers from employing anyone.

5. Systematically drain the private sector of investment capital.

6. Provide public sector employees with pay rises on demand.

7. Invite the EU to propose some helpful new regulations that we could adopt.

8. Resume foreign aid contributions to those who are violently hostile to Western interests.

9. Increase the national debt, specifically for the purposes of reinforcing proven failure.

10. If all else fails, impose arbitrary net zero targets.

[Smartie]

All said and done, in a democracy like ours, we get the government we vote in. The electorate (including me and those of us that chose not to vote) voted in 14 years of Tory rule and have voted in Labour for the following 5. So in that sense, we deserve what the Tories did with their time in power and will deserve the fruits of what Labour do with theirs.

Doesn't really work though does it? The government is usually voted in by around a third of the voting population which isn't a ringing endorsement for them to do anything they want without considering other perspectives.
We get a very limited choice in first past the post - much better would be a proportional system where voters could vote for smaller parties, such as the Greens and where they would have some influence on policy in government.

The Americans are in a similar (or even worse) position with a lot of people holding their noses to vote for Republican policies with a manbaby president.

[sreed]

Doesn't really work though does it? The government is usually voted in by around a third of the voting population which isn't a ringing endorsement for them to do anything they want without considering other perspectives.
We get a very limited choice in first past the post - much better would be a proportional system where voters could vote for smaller parties, such as the Greens and where they would have some influence on policy in government.

The Americans are in a similar (or even worse) position with a lot of people holding their noses to vote for Republican policies with a manbaby president.

Absolutely agree with what you've said, but the system is what it is and in that context the elected government (irrespective of party) does what suits its ideology, vested interests and electoral fortunes.

I would prefer a PR/ish system to FPTP any day, but again we had a referendum to move away from FPTP and the electorate rejected it soundly. If Reform was voted into power in July, and they enacted their manifesto, that would've given us PR as well, but that didn't happen.

[coolhandluke]

PR is one of those systems that look good on paper but in practice deliver chaos. We would simply have a coalition with the fringe parties holding the country to ransom.

A few years ago the National Front would have once a large number of seats if PR was in place.