State of the Market

[Manic]

So I have been in the lucky position to have had back to back contracts while the market has been dead. Some how managed to dodge all the recent bullets. I was even offered a contract extension well into next year (probably too the end).

But I am going to chance my arm on a perm role - accepted a very decent offer. Been contracting now for just under 20 years and its time to move in to a proper day job and start looking at that career ladder with all the wonderful benefits that come with employment (lol). I can't be arsed fighting it out for more contracts. Maybe once the kids have moved out and the mortgage is paid and the pension pop is nice and fat

So thats me done with contracting (for now anyway :P )

Best of luck. I went perm in 2020 and my salary is the same as my contracting rate. I just pay a bit more tax.

[mogga71]

I have an outside contract paying £500 a day. I am not going to sit hear moaning about paying a little more tax on the very good money I make and neither should you.

Personally I am running a business. Sounds like you might want review your status with your thinking.

What? Why don't you just do one instead?

[OrangeSquash]

So I have been in the lucky position to have had back to back contracts while the market has been dead. Some how managed to dodge all the recent bullets. I was even offered a contract extension well into next year (probably too the end).

But I am going to chance my arm on a perm role - accepted a very decent offer. Been contracting now for just under 20 years and its time to move in to a proper day job and start looking at that career ladder with all the wonderful benefits that come with employment (lol). I can't be arsed fighting it out for more contracts. Maybe once the kids have moved out and the mortgage is paid and the pension pop is nice and fat

So thats me done with contracting (for now anyway :P )

What sort of perm package were you able negotiate?

[dx4100]

So I have been in the lucky position to have had back to back contracts while the market has been dead. Some how managed to dodge all the recent bullets. I was even offered a contract extension well into next year (probably too the end).

But I am going to chance my arm on a perm role - accepted a very decent offer. Been contracting now for just under 20 years and its time to move in to a proper day job and start looking at that career ladder with all the wonderful benefits that come with employment (lol). I can't be arsed fighting it out for more contracts. Maybe once the kids have moved out and the mortgage is paid and the pension pop is nice and fat

So thats me done with contracting (for now anyway :P )

[dx4100]

The bulk of their costs is staff which is not VAT claimable. Its not just VAT but also the removal of business rate releif.

Yes, the staff they pay with big salaries which where educated and trained by the state and poached from the state sector at the expense of state educated children. Ill go find my violin :P

[dx4100]

....increasing taxes on companies rather than workers ? Considering you are on a Contractors Bulletin Board and most of those people here are on 'Outside' contracts surely you will understand that a lot of people will be disagreeing with this statement as charging Employer NI on a so called 'disguised employee' is a ridiculous enough .... but then increasing it is just taking the absolute pi$$.

I don't actually care who is in power as I know that all any government can do is akin to rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. The point of no return came many years ago. I will be amazed if Labour get a second term though .... I think they have come to power at precisely the wrong time and anything they do will do will go down like a lead balloon. The vast majority of this mess came via the Consevatives who let the Country down so badly and nobody is turning that around.

I have an outside contract paying £500 a day. I am not going to sit hear moaning about paying a little more tax on the very good money I make and neither should you.

Personally I am running a business. Sounds like you might want review your status with your thinking.

[hobnob]

It seems like LI have unleashed their AI bot pruner, with predictable results.

It might be AI related another way. LinkedIn updated their terms of service to say that they can harvest your posts to feed into their LLM, so some people have deleted their accounts to prevent that.

[squarepeg]

Yes, I saw someone I'm connected to who had over 100,000 Linkedin followers say they had lost several thousand in one go.

I checked my own account today and I lost about 2% of my followers. Apparently it's not just dormant or suspected bot accounts, people have said connections they know well and engage with have also disappeared.

LinkedIn is owned by MSFT so my expectations are low. I lost around 100 contacts. It seems like LI have unleashed their AI bot pruner, with predictable results.

[edison]

Funnily enough I see a couple of wannabe influencers with largish following on LinkedIn are saying they have lost a load of contacts overnight. Maybe LinkedIn have had a cull?

Yes, I saw someone I'm connected to who had over 100,000 Linkedin followers say they had lost several thousand in one go.

I checked my own account today and I lost about 2% of my followers. Apparently it's not just dormant or suspected bot accounts, people have said connections they know well and engage with have also disappeared.

[willendure]

I hate to explain time between contracts. I was recently asked to explain what I was doing for the last two months and provide references for the time I "worked on my own projects". We agreed to call it "unemployment". This is for a contract outside IR35, B2B, so why the hell they need to know what I was doing between contracts I will never know. I was told "since you worked with us before, I am going to transfer documents so you do not have to re-upload them" Five minutes later an email arrived in my inbox with a link to... document re-upload page. Recruiters haven't changed, they just have fewer contracts to offer.

That is right. Between contracts your business has been conducting business as usual - looking for more customers. During gaps in contracts I have continued to draw a salary from my business, so not even unemployed!