State of the Market

[ShandyDrinker]

I recall Dublin being quite the hotbed when I started out contracting in 2008. Funnily enough I went for a contract in Ireland recently and got turned down immediately for not being an EU citizen so that actual route is probably closed now.

I think it might have been possible once. It is probably very unlikely now. There is no real incentive to save some money by getting in someone without sector experience when there are probably people with experience relatively cheaply available.

At the time I was doing it, and the reason I transferred to the UK is that I got to the 180 day limit (over a 2 year period I think it was) before I'd become liable to Irish tax. Hell, I even had to register with the Irish tax authorities and submit essentially blank returns. With the 180 day limit, the days of entry and exit into the country didn't count at the time so as I was flying Ryanair home every Friday night and returning early on Monday morning, this was just about doable.

Ireland is a very specific case as the British and Irish have the right to live and work in Ireland and the UK respectively under the Common Travel Agreement without requiring permission to do so.

The big killer for many companies was the cluster**** that is the off-payroll rules legislation. For many companies it meant that ultimately you'd have to work via an Irish Umbrella company to make it all legal and above board. The retention would be awful, with it being game over if you had to travel over there. Then there's the exchange rate risk. I haven't worked in Dublin for over a decade now and wouldn't do so, purely for how difficult it has become. I nearly returned just as covid got going in March 2020 when I was in a contract lull, but luckily managed to secure a UK based contract instead.

As I've also mentioned though, get a contract in a location outside of the city and transfer. I suspect that's still an option if some people are able to leverage it, particularly if they're early in their contracting career.

[TheDude]

IB are very restrictive on what can be done. Usually working with old or very old tech.

That isn't really true.

However IBs don't jump on the very latest tech trends for good reasons.

[oliverson]

thank all the Friends of Farage for restricting your business to UK only.
EU clients don't want the hassle.

And yet here I am, just finishing up on a multi-year contract with an American client!

These remoaners sure are blinkered!

[rocktronAMP]

Had this through today if it's of interest to anyone (no rate provided):


===
Team Overview:
The Scrum Master of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Engineering group in the Core Infrastructure division at Morgan Stanley is responsible for designing, implementing and managing the firm?s huge scale global physical and virtual server infrastructure.
===

Key Responsibilities:
• We are seeking a Scrum Master to join our organization in Glasgow, co-located with two squads in the early stages of Agile adoption.
• You will be responsible for improving value-add, flow rate, quality standards, predictability and continuous improvement of your teams, as well as participating in the firms rapidly expanding horizontal Agile practice spanning numerous technology areas.
• You will use Agile methodology values, principles and practices to plan, manage, and deliver solutions.
• Facilitate and coordinate agile ceremonies, and manage workflow through Jira • Create and deliver a reporting framework for team members and management • Train and mentor squad members in Agile techniques • Work with product owners to handle roadmaps, backlogs and new requests • Monitor progress and performance and help teams institute effective change • Help build a productive environment where team members own and enjoy working on their products

===

Desired Skills:
• Experience working with virtual teams

I wonder what the rate is? Why they chose not to reveal?
* Looks to me, SCRUM mistress needs an awful lot of domain knowledge. Certs for example
* Shouldn't this role be KANBAN pulling ticket with prioritisations and cadence review? Indeed, why not use Service Now SNOW all the way?
* The fact that you have to mentor folk on agile ceremonies feels like herding a big cats or something?
* The worry is delivering reporting framework: is their lack of respect, transparency, and/or even care abot Morgan Stanley
* Institute effective change: poor SRE, DevOps and probably PlatOps lack of morale and probably worse (toxicity blame culture )
* Why 2 squads? Can they not afford 2 scrum mistresses taking care of 2 or 3 squads.
* Virtual teams - why do you have to be on site for 3 days a week.

Verdict: TRAINWRECK. AVOID. early coronary disease (unless they are paying £1000 per day Inside IR35)

[willendure]

That isn't really true.

However IBs don't jump on the very latest tech trends for good reasons.

Yes, banks are risk averse and rightly so. That said, there is a strong link between IBs and tech because of their heavy involvement in financing tech companies, underwriting IPOs and so on. In my experience they tend to be very tech aware and keeping up with everything important happening in tech. My second stint at an IB was actually working on messaging tech and we partnered with the likes of RedHat, Cisco, Informatica on this project. Going back a few months when the number of AI contracts was very low, I would say a high percentage of them were coming from IBs - suggesting that they are early adopters of tech.

Worked for a retail bank also, and there was a lot of IBM Mainframe and Datapower kit. But then there was the mobile app stuff and that was all running on AWS. There was a group of AI developers who all looked like they were about 16 years old, working on the banks chat bots.

So yeah - core systems and going to be using the tried and tested stuff, but I think you will also find pockets of people doing cutting edge stuff too.

[TheDude]

And yet here I am, just finishing up on a multi-year contract with an American client!

These remoaners sure are blinkered!

Maybe the reality of finding a new one will open your eyes a little.

[quackhandle]

Seeing the contract roles listed on LI, Jobserve, etc you do wonder how many of them are actually genuine.

Would explain the ghosting by the pimps.

qh

[sadkingbilly]

And yet here I am, just finishing up on a multi-year contract with an American client!

These remoaners sure are blinkered!

so EU (like i said) = USA?
your geography is a tad screwed up i think.

[SussexSeagull]

At the time I was doing it, and the reason I transferred to the UK is that I got to the 180 day limit (over a 2 year period I think it was) before I'd become liable to Irish tax. Hell, I even had to register with the Irish tax authorities and submit essentially blank returns. With the 180 day limit, the days of entry and exit into the country didn't count at the time so as I was flying Ryanair home every Friday night and returning early on Monday morning, this was just about doable.

Ireland is a very specific case as the British and Irish have the right to live and work in Ireland and the UK respectively under the Common Travel Agreement without requiring permission to do so.

The big killer for many companies was the cluster**** that is the off-payroll rules legislation. For many companies it meant that ultimately you'd have to work via an Irish Umbrella company to make it all legal and above board. The retention would be awful, with it being game over if you had to travel over there. Then there's the exchange rate risk. I haven't worked in Dublin for over a decade now and wouldn't do so, purely for how difficult it has become. I nearly returned just as covid got going in March 2020 when I was in a contract lull, but luckily managed to secure a UK based contract instead.

As I've also mentioned though, get a contract in a location outside of the city and transfer. I suspect that's still an option if some people are able to leverage it, particularly if they're early in their contracting career.

They did say something about them only looking at EU residents as the tax situation got complicated otherwise.

At the moment I am struggling to find a contract in sectors I have experience in so getting one in a sector I don't is unlikely but I will bear it in mind for if and when the market picks up.

[uk contractor]

Seeing the contract roles listed on LI, Jobserve, etc you do wonder how many of them are actually genuine.

Would explain the ghosting by the pimps.

qh

You hit the nail right on the head few are genuine roles many are just CV harvesting exercises...if the agent is not seen to be busy then they become surplus to requirements & get the big heave ho with no payout just std notice terms for most as they have not been there long enough to qualify for anything more.