State of the Market

[hgllgh]

I am limiting my search for a BA contract. Its been a month now. 3 telephone interviews which resulted in one face to face yesterday. Still waiting to hear. Market seems slow....and talk but little action. Give it two or so weeks and will have to branch out to perm

[northernladuk]

I am limiting my search for a BA contract. Its been a month now. 3 telephone interviews which resulted in one face to face yesterday. Still waiting to hear. Market seems slow....and talk but little action. Give it two or so weeks and will have to branch out to perm

So after 6 weeks of looking for a gig you are thinking of going perm? Maybe you should go now because YANCOTBAC it seems.

[hgllgh]

So after 6 weeks of looking for a gig you are thinking of going perm? Maybe you should go now because YANCOTBAC it seems.

So what would you say is a reasonable length of time to be looking for a BA contract in London?

[northernladuk]

So what would you say is a reasonable length of time to be looking for a BA contract in London?

A good one? About a week

Joking aside my comment was more aimed that as a contractor you ought to be prepared financially and mentally to spend a couple of months looking for work. Some people on here take a couple of weeks off in between gigs just have a break let alone having to think about going perm.

Your warchest should be lasting you 3 months minimum and even if it takes that long you'll still rake in more than a perm.

4 weeks in and already resigning yourself to perm isn't the way of a contractor.

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

A good one? About a week

Joking aside my comment was more aimed that as a contractor you ought to be prepared financially and mentally to spend a couple of months looking for work. Some people on here take a couple of weeks off in between gigs just have a break let alone having to think about going perm.

Your warchest should be lasting you 3 months minimum and even if it takes that long you'll still rake in more than a perm.

4 weeks in and already resigning yourself to perm isn't the way of a contractor.

I've finally managed to get myself to the point of having a year's worth of warchest. Took me a long time to get here but now every month is a bonus. Worst downtime I had was xmas last year, partly due to laziness. I lost 2 months but clawed it back and now better than when I was last year. It ain't easy but when it finally pays off it is awesome.

[PerfectStorm]

Even with BA contracting experience I've had an occasion of going 3 months without a gig - with money obviously hitting my account on the 4th month. It's all part of the fun and games.

A month of that was dicking about waiting for a "come back" contract that never came.

[edison]

There's no such thing as 'the market'

IMHO it's a bit misleading to think of contracting as one market. It's similar to the UK housing market. There was a good analysis piece on the BBC recently which suggested there are about 5-6 different types of market based on demographics, geographical area, type/age of property etc.

Same with the IT contractor market based on sector, skillset and geography.

I've been trying to recruit a contract PM to work on a payroll project. These people seem to be in tremendous demand, I've made several offers which were rejected by candidates after they accepted another offer within less than 24 hours of me interviewing them. I'm also recruiting a perm PM role to work initially on a project in a specialised finance functional area. My sponsor is getting frustrated with lack of decent candidates and has suggested getting a consultant in at somewhere well over £2000/day (which I don't think is needed but it shows how few people seem to be available unless you are going to pay very large day rates.)

Similarly we have a shared service centre that provides network and infrastructure for most of the business's operating companies. It is located close to several other large companies in a very bouyant local jobs market. There is a now an IT 'talent war' for even fairly junior roles like Service Desk analysts.

In the longer term as new technologies like AI become more prevalent, I think the market will increasingly split into two halves. Roles with a large proportion of face to face human contact/creativity/cognition will thrive. Roles that are repetitive, no matter how technical or complex, will be at greater risk of automation and hence rates will be in a steady real terms decline.

I always give advice to younger people early in their career to think about paying as much attention to developing their soft skills as technical ones. That will be an ever increasing differentiator in the long term.

[PerfectStorm]

Anyone joining the market after Christmas?

Warm up the bench please lads

[fiisch]

Anyone joining the market after Christmas?

Warm up the bench please lads

Probably... Contract not due to expire until end of March, but company has just been taken over so projects are all being mothballed, and I've been left with very little to do.

I've not long started contracting so my warchest is looking a little thin at the moment...

[mattfx]

Anyone joining the market after Christmas?

Warm up the bench please lads

Save me a space next to you PS! Although to be fair - mine is by choice. I could've eeked out another extension but I need to get on to something different.