State of the Market

[SussexSeagull]

FWIW, that is my experience. Having a network is your best chance, but they are obviously rarer than a few years ago. There has always been a pretty large subset of the contracts "market" that doesn't involve procurement by advertising or agents, mostly towards the higher end of contracts by value and skills, including outside contracts, but also some contracts that are default inside due to having a decision making role at the client etc.

I haven't found a contract through a job site in years (admittedly I haven't found a contract at all for a while but still). All come through existing contacts or being approached.

[SussexSeagull]

Not at all - and I am not inferring that in any way. In fact, I've posted about suffering from imposter syndrome previously....

I'm a fairly vanilla BA who doesn't like running a workshop, if I can get consecutive outside IR35 contracts then that tells me the market isn't quite as bad as being made out on here.... The country is still very London-specific, I suspect I'd struggle if I was limiting to immediate local area, but provided I'm willing to show my face in London a couple of times a week, so far *touches wood* I've found plenty of follow-up contract as and when the time comes.

I am glad you are doing well but I think you are in a minority amongst contractors at the moment, although it only took me two weeks to find my last contract at the tale end of 2023 so it was certainly possible in the not too distant past.

I have done several contracts in London so it certainly isn't a barrier for me (although Southern Rail sometimes are).l

Glad to hear someone doing well though.

[Fraidycat]

Talking about Europe, the ECB cut interest rates to 2% today. 8 cuts in a year.

EU 2%
UK 4.25%
US 4.25%

When will we see 2% here? Will it make any difference?

[ResistanceFighter]

a lot of the time skill has nothing to do with it, it's who you know.

contract dev I worked with previously wasn't very good, but he had been in the game a while and was that pushy, knows every one type, constantly looking for more and more work type running multiple contracts at the same time

Messaged me the other day saying he had landed another 6 months of work with a tech I know he knows nothing about

[SchumiStars]

a lot of the time skill has nothing to do with it, it's who you know.

contract dev I worked with previously wasn't very good, but he had been in the game a while and was that pushy, knows every one type, constantly looking for more and more work type running multiple contracts at the same time

Messaged me the other day saying he had landed another 6 months of work with a tech I know he knows nothing about

More than a few times, I have landed contracts for which I did not have the technical skills. Simply by presenting myself in the best light.

Those have generally been my favourite jobs TBF. Knowing that I would be leaving with further skills to go into the toolbox. These are the most valuable opportunities.

I would happily take a lower day rate against the competitors and to encourage the agency I am the best choice. Even when I had higher paying positions that were more aligned with the presented CV, furthing the skill base was always the ideal.

[hungry_hog]

I worked with a (supposed technical PM) at one of the Banks, had no technical knowledge, but was good at presentations, would dress smartly and carry a leather folio. Was brilliant at chatting up his co workers (or anyone actually).
I think he milked about 5 years out of it.

[Snooky]

Yep those two are dangerous due to their dimness....Rayner and Reeve's have played a blinder and screwed up royally....please get them away from government it is utterly mind boggling that they are Chancellor and Deputy PM with no credentials to be in those posts.

Which of their predecessors would you say have the credentials to be in those posts? For example, Rachel Reeves has a Masters in Economics from LSE and worked as an economist at the Bank of England. Of all the chancellors since 2010, I'd say that less than half had anywhere near that level of expertise but I don't recall you complaining about them.

Even so, ministers don't have to be experts in the area they're responsible for, they always have experts to advise them.

[dsc]

I am not going to provide advice to you on working abroad to you after this post.

Good on you for targeting Germany, but you are doing this on the back of that herman_g poster who was helpful. Europe is a big continent, look at other countries. Have you visited any of them? I would recommend avoiding France for work, you will find it painful as a foreigner there.

Discover what country you like from your past visits and then target one or two countries. Given the effort you will be going to, don't limit yourself to Germany. Good luck.

"Faking" it with a foreign number wouldn't work anyway, most work is hybrid nowadays anyway and you'd need to sign some paperwork at some stage, need tax presence etc. Might as well move there and then start searching unless the contract is fully remote and they allow UK as the country of presence (although most don't as it's an extra tax hassle, so why do it?).

[oliverson]

Which of their predecessors would you say have the credentials to be in those posts? For example, Rachel Reeves has a Masters in Economics from LSE and worked as an economist at the Bank of England. Of all the chancellors since 2010, I'd say that less than half had anywhere near that level of expertise but I don't recall you complaining about them.

Even so, ministers don't have to be experts in the area they're responsible for, they always have experts to advise them.

'economist at the Bank of England'?

Do you mean Rachael from accounts?

[Cookielove]

Exactly oliverson ....

"economist at the BoE" hilarious....

she was handling retail customer complaints at HBOS