State of the Market

[uk contractor]

Excellent article.

It’s safe to assume almost all of what they’re talking about is about IT professional roles.

I agree as that is where the biggest cost savings can be made...meantime you have contractors posting on here about asking for higher rates @ renewal time!

[MrButton]

I agree as that is where the biggest cost savings can be made...meantime you have contractors posting on here about asking for higher rates @ renewal time!

Brexit to the rescue.

[hairymouse]

Market was good for me

Just thought I would give something back to the forum by giving my little report on the market:

I'm a long time contractor with skills in SQL Server development, ETL and Data Warehouses. I started looking in Mid April , loading a new version of my CV on all the job boards and applying for a new contract on jobserve. There seemed to be plenty of jobs in the City for around £500 a day and I just signed a new contract today. This time around I found the market pretty good with about a month of bench time. Contrary to other's experience, I did fine following the tried and true route of using job boards and waiting for agents to call. I never bothered to update my Linked in profile.

I'm not a native and have a strong accent. I did notice a LOT more questions about my immigration status than ever before.

One last thing - I was pleasantly surprised to find that if you sign up for free to MyVisualStudio.com, you can get tons of good stuff for free. The most interesting for me was 3 months of Pluralsight training which I was just about to pay for. I was also able to get free versions of Visual Studio, SQL Server, Power BI and a Virtual machine to load it all on. This was super helpful for upgrading my skills. I found out about this here, but figured it can't hurt to say it again.

Good Luck to all that will follow....

[slogger]

There's not one market thats homogenous in terms of demand..theres many within it..all the different specialisms areas etc...so Im surprised a lot of people think it should be bad for everybody... company i contract at cant hire enough people...its really hard to find quality contractors...

[sal]

Job hopes of 4m Brits hit by an
Many of these are IT related posts so its not going to get better for many UK born IT workers anytime soon.

A Think-tank, quoted by Dailyfail...

Newsflash - even in EE IT pays better than London and large parts of the UK in real terms, largely thanks to the offshoring.

So yeah - "They took our jobs", but not the immigrants.

[hairymouse]

Just thought I would give something back to the forum by giving my little report on the market:

I'm a long time contractor with skills in SQL Server development, ETL and Data Warehouses. I started looking in Mid April , loading a new version of my CV on all the job boards and applying for a new contract on jobserve. There seemed to be plenty of jobs in the City for around £500 a day and I just signed a new contract today. This time around I found the market pretty good with about a month of bench time. Contrary to other's experience, I did fine following the tried and true route of using job boards and waiting for agents to call. I never bothered to update my Linked in profile.

I'm not a native and have a strong accent. I did notice a LOT more questions about my immigration status than ever before.

One last thing - I was pleasantly surprised to find that if you sign up for free to MyVisualStudio.com, you can get tons of good stuff for free. The most interesting for me was 3 months of Pluralsight training which I was just about to pay for. I was also able to get free versions of Visual Studio, SQL Server, Power BI and a Virtual machine to load it all on. This was super helpful for upgrading my skills. I found out about this here, but figured it can't hurt to say it again.

Good Luck to all that will follow....

I knew when I was posting this that I was jinxing it. AFTER I signed the contract, the agent called me this morning with some story about the client thinking the rate was £120 per day less. Time to keep looking....

[BlackCountryContractor]

Leaving the circuit now jobs in SC sector has recommenced but found most of the projects are now aiming for the end of the year for a full completion. It's going to be a very long dry spell coming for rollout engineers in central government after november 2018

[Anonimouse]

Not in London lots of sc deployments, not enough contractors, we have a break in the project but are being paid to not work for a month

[ContractorHardman]

I have just spent my longest time on the bench although the first 4 weeks I didnt really try. Typically, I had nothing come along for 4 weeks after and then all of a sudden, I got 3 offers. This market has been a bit more difficult than usual and I have seen a fair few contractors saying the same. Another thing I have noticed is a shift in roles to Edinburgh for £100 less a day.

Bench time is when you find out what you are made of

[MattZani]

I have just spent my longest time on the bench although the first 4 weeks I didnt really try. Typically, I had nothing come along for 4 weeks after and then all of a sudden, I got 3 offers. This market has been a bit more difficult than usual and I have seen a fair few contractors saying the same. Another thing I have noticed is a shift in roles to Edinburgh for £100 less a day.

Bench time is when you find out what you are made of

you in edinburgh?

what types of roles are you talking about? dev/pm/...?