State of the Market

[sadkingbilly]

Your posts do mark you out as being rather insufferable.

For many of us who have worked as contractors for a long time, it's f***ing hard when you've managed to land contracts for the best part of 20 years and then all of a sudden it's nigh on impossible to find work. On a personal level it's been way worse than 2008-2010 so far, and definitely worse than covid.

It's great for you that you're fighting off work. Congratulations, you're the forum hero.

Your niche may well be doing fine right now, but it may well see a downturn too at some point.

A little humility and empathy goes a long way, especially for people struggling in this market, myself included.

i've seen lots of downturns.
been a contractor since '72
my point is that whingeing and moaning doesn't help.

[ShandyDrinker]

I am sure some people with fabled niche skills are still doing well but there are just too many people who have found contracts easily or relatively easily over, in some cases, several decades not finding work anymore to suggest it is a personal failing or skills going out of date.

In demand skills have constantly changed and most of us were able to keep up. it really isn't a new thing. We are witnessing an existential change in the market,

That's the thing, even if you do shift focus, it isn't enough. I've moved from more .NET and server side development to cloud (primarily Azure and AWS) and even some AI development work thrown in. It's not enough. The problem is that work has just stopped being advertised. Yes, I've tended to work in large corporates but have had no problems working in small startups as and when necessary. Hiring has just fallen off a cliff.

Now, my belief is that, while AI has had an impact, outsourcing and offshoring has played a much bigger role. We all know that outsourcing and ITC abuse has happened for years. Likewise offshoring. You only have to look at posts such as the following on X:



For the original: https://x.com/WallStreetMav/status/1972375567019434154 - yes, I'm aware of the community note.

I'll say what I believe many won't, a recent trade deal is a travesty for the domestic IT workforce, because we can't possibly expect to compete for the period they don't have to pay NI, and that's before we've even talked about pay.

[SussexSeagull]

I am sure some people with fabled niche skills are still doing well but there are just too many people who have found contracts easily or relatively easily over, in some cases, several decades not finding work anymore to suggest it is a personal failing or skills going out of date.

In demand skills have constantly changed and most of us were able to keep up. it really isn't a new thing. We are witnessing an existential change in the market,

[malvolio]

Your posts do mark you out as being rather insufferable.

For many of us who have worked as contractors for a long time, it's f***ing hard when you've managed to land contracts for the best part of 20 years and then all of a sudden it's nigh on impossible to find work. On a personal level it's been way worse than 2008-2010 so far, and definitely worse than covid.

It's great for you that you're fighting off work. Congratulations, you're the forum hero.

Your niche may well be doing fine right now, but it may well see a downturn too at some point.

A little humility and empathy goes a long way, especially for people struggling in this market, myself included.

If you want to waste a little time for entertainment's sake, find one post from SKB's 2000-odd that actually offers usable advice...

[ShandyDrinker]

ok, - 685.
now, is that closer to 7 or 6??
depends on your point of view.
a miserable, whining. hard done by person might have the latter view, so as to attempt to denigrate the position of someone more fortunate, but i'm not one of those. fortunately

Your posts do mark you out as being rather insufferable.

For many of us who have worked as contractors for a long time, it's f***ing hard when you've managed to land contracts for the best part of 20 years and then all of a sudden it's nigh on impossible to find work. On a personal level it's been way worse than 2008-2010 so far, and definitely worse than covid.

It's great for you that you're fighting off work. Congratulations, you're the forum hero.

Your niche may well be doing fine right now, but it may well see a downturn too at some point.

A little humility and empathy goes a long way, especially for people struggling in this market, myself included.

[sadkingbilly]

Seem to recall you posting recently you'd just landed another contract, rate starting with a 6.

ok, - 685.
now, is that closer to 7 or 6??
depends on your point of view.
a miserable, whining. hard done by person might have the latter view, so as to attempt to denigrate the position of someone more fortunate, but i'm not one of those. fortunately

[oliverson]

Well, this old ticker's still coining 700/day.

Seem to recall you posting recently you'd just landed another contract, rate starting with a 6.

[sadkingbilly]

But then you work on archaic systems and dead languages. Such skills are obviously both rare and in demand. So hardly typical of the bulk of IT people.

hardly archaic, since they're processing all or most of your banking/insurance/grocery info 24/7.
and assembler/REXX aren't dead yet for the same reason.
I don't do applications, so no cobol/'pl/1'/fortran/etc.
strictly infrastructure systems integration/maint.

hthbidi.

[SchumiStars]

This is one of the reasons why IT is such a hard sport. Having to keep skills up to date.

I remember coming out of a long contract and everyone was using Git repos. It took me a long time to understand how to use it effectively. Even now, I struggle with merge conflicts.

Although it does look as if I'll be retiring early at this rate anyhow. October, 2026, round the corner and market is flat.

[jamesbrown]

Yeah, I think to be a succesful contractor you need to go one of 2 ways. 1. Some out of date, hard to find niche skill, that is still in demand because there are still enough systems using it in big enough companies that will pay well for the skill or 2. Some cutting edge skill that is in demand but hardly anyone else does it yet. In between you don't have an edge in the market.

I guess 1 is your Z-Systems or Cobol for Billy.
2 might be latest AI stuff.

Java used to be 2, but these days its almost ready to become a 1!

Or perhaps consider the world outside of bloody IT .