State of the Market

[ContractorHardman]

you in edinburgh?

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

Seen mostly DA and BA roles floating around.

Tesco Bank, Lloyds, Aberdeen Investments, Sainsburys and HSBC are hiring I believe. RBS are going through a bit of a cut back so not much going on there

I am in London and wanted to stay here but Edinburgh seemed to have a few roles they were screaming out for as they are trying to move them from London. My second last contract got told I was being cut unless I fancied Edinburgh.

[SandyD]

Market is quite dead?? No?? Not even phishing calls or emails for quite a while now !!

[uk contractor]

Market is quite dead?? No?? Not even phishing calls or emails for quite a while now !!

GDPA effect , low interest rates, Brexit , too many non UK IT resource here working for zero hour contracts level money + for most people its quite dead for ages but a select few tell us the sun is always shining & £2K a week (which I find hard to believe actually anyway) just drops out of the sky into their bank accounts!

[AndrewK]

GDPA effect , low interest rates, Brexit , too many non UK IT resource here working for zero hour contracts level money + for most people its quite dead for ages but a select few tell us the sun is always shining & £2K a week (which I find hard to believe actually anyway) just drops out of the sky into their bank accounts!

2K a week is low rate. Maybe 2K a day?

[SussexSeagull]

GDPA effect , low interest rates, Brexit , too many non UK IT resource here working for zero hour contracts level money + for most people its quite dead for ages but a select few tell us the sun is always shining & £2K a week (which I find hard to believe actually anyway) just drops out of the sky into their bank accounts!

Some people do walk between contracts as they have this mythical thing called a niche. Now some people do have in demand skills but in my experience it is more people build up a network of contacts in a geographic area and agents look at a CV and see it.

Non UK labour is becoming a shrinking problem. Outsourcing is the bigger problem for us.

I had a year between contracts the time before last and two months (including Christmas and background checks) last time. Assuming I didn’t gain superhuman contract finding powers in the interim that suggests timing is important.

I know people don’t want to think about it because it is out of their control but luck and timing play a huge part in the contract search.

[LondonManc]

Some people do walk between contracts as they have this mythical thing called a niche. Now some people do have in demand skills but in my experience it is more people build up a network of contacts in a geographic area and agents look at a CV and see it.

Non UK labour is becoming a shrinking problem. Outsourcing is the bigger problem for us.

I had a year between contracts the time before last and two months (including Christmas and background checks) last time. Assuming I didn’t gain superhuman contract finding powers in the interim that suggests timing is important.

I know people don’t want to think about it because it is out of their control but luck and timing play a huge part in the contract search.

Correct - it's a bit of luck that one of your previous clients might have budget and need for you when you're coming free. Either that or you are recommended to an agent by a friend because they're already in a gig and the agent and friend are both doing well out of their current gig.

[HugeWhale]

I know people don’t want to think about it because it is out of their control but luck and timing play a huge part in the contract search.

Hear hear! Some plain and simple honesty. Some smug contractors think they're geniuses when in fact the cards have just fallen for them.

[LondonManc]

Hear hear! Some plain and simple honesty. Some smug contractors think they're geniuses when in fact the cards have just fallen for them.

Part of it is basic things like not taking a six month contract in mid-June, ending up bench before Christmas because that will invariably mean 6-8 weeks out.

[oliverson]

Hear hear! Some plain and simple honesty. Some smug contractors think they're geniuses when in fact the cards have just fallen for them.

I think some contractors just get complacent. I was one of them and contracts in my speciality were appearing less frequently. So I reskilled, actually I'm still reskilling, and the problem has gone away. In fact it's quite the opposite. I wish I could clone myself so I could do multiple contracts at once! (and £ 2k a week is pretty poor really. I recently billed £ 20k for a month, but yeah, I've had my hard times too - £ 0 for 4 months)

[man]

I think some contractors just get complacent. I was one of them and contracts in my speciality were appearing less frequently. So I reskilled, actually I'm still reskilling, and the problem has gone away. In fact it's quite the opposite. I wish I could clone myself so I could do multiple contracts at once! (and £ 2k a week is pretty poor really. I recently billed £ 20k for a month, but yeah, I've had my hard times too - £ 0 for 4 months)

It could just be my bad luck/inability to write a good CV but I've never found a solid way of effectively 'reskilling' (unless certs, study and blind luck counts) because I've found that if I don't have experience measured in years doing the exact advertised role, on the CV in bold print, my applications are largely ignored, most of the few agents who do call are disinterested as their questions centre around experience in doing the exact role advertised (often requested in number of years) and of the few agents willing to take a punt on transferrable skills/attitude, the hiring manager isn't interested in progressing.

Do you have a method or any suggestions that seem to work? (i.e. once you've learned how to use the new skills - in getting your foot in the door to demonstrate them). Happy to accept that this may just be unavoidable and it really is blind luck but I'm hopeful that there is a more effective way (except lying, which sadly I suspect is likely to be effective - but I refuse to).