State of the Market

[ShandyDrinker]

To add to the misery of searching for contracts in 2025. Gee, thanks Rachel. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yjlw4n5d5o

[Dorkeaux]

Just what do you think is a decent Plan B or Plan C to do? Especially, if Plan A is equivalent to Earn Income in your chosen Career Path.
BTW I am a software engineer since I was a kid. Plan A earns the big bread IMHO.

Actually, I was talking about Oliverson's plan A, B and C for retirement, not career planning.

[rocktronAMP]

Drove 2 hours from my place in Silicon Valley to Sacramento and met a nice PM at California State Lottery. She looked at my CV and asked me if I was able to start in the first or second week of September. I told her first week and she asked if she could buy me lunch at a nice Mexican place next to the river. We drank so many margaritas she called a taxi, took me to where the contractors apartments were, pulled some keys from her purse and said "that will be your apartment". You can stay until you're sober enough to drive home or all week, doesn't matter to me (the lottery was the only state government department that made money and they made a lot of it).

Wow! Ha! That's some distance from Mountview and Palo Alto driving up the terrain to Sacremento. I remember the university town on the way up there Davis or David. You keep driving then you'd end up at the ski resort. Crazy times and money!

[rocktronAMP]

I think this is normal. I can't bloody wait until retirement either.
You should always have a plan A, B, C etc, but maybe show some flex in bouncing between them.

Just what do you think is a decent Plan B or Plan C to do? Especially, if Plan A is equivalent to Earn Income in your chosen Career Path.
BTW I am a software engineer since I was a kid. Plan A earns the big bread IMHO.

[rocktronAMP]

Our Interview process:

* 30 minute call with one of our Talent Acquisition Team
* 1 hour competency based interview
* Take home task & review
* 60 minute values led interview.



And this was for a contract role.

qh

Eat a ****!!!
The ****!!!

There is the other side of this: Fast Track One-Stage Interviews; avoid/.

I had a recent experience with a GOV.UK reputable consultancy. They advertised 3 month contract rolling at the one-stage interview stage, which lasted just 38 minutes. They offered me the contract. I was going to be a Dev Lead. I started the gig, I wondered where were the rest of the dev team, which I was supposed to leading. Nothing yet. "We are building a team" "Don't worry, we sourcing the server-side stories", "In the meantime, here is some UI/UX work in the JIRA". I listened and carried on, State of the Market. I believed the hype. After 5 weeks, my engagement was shelved. Consultancy and their head of engineering bare-faced lied to my face IMHO. I think they shafted me (tech lead) to bring in cheaper resources (if they find them). I also had the Outside IR35 contract and started a new LTD company.

On Friday, I just saw the same consultancy pushing an job advert for permanent software developers (not lead) £50-60K. I think they want to bring mid-levels and younger in order to complete their examplar project. Should have seen it coming.

Lesson: do proper due on diligence of the Glassdoor and Reddit, more than a few comments on there in the last 18 months or so... the consultancy social team had verbose replies: one doth complaineth too much. ffs!

Could do with some foreign work from overseas with no UK presence right here right now.

[Bluenose]

https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/20/visa_h1b_reform/

why is the UK not doing the same with our equivalent visas, like intra company transfers for the outsourcers.

Its a sensitive topic, as insiders many of us know that the similar system has been abused in the UK for years but government has turned a blind eye.

I dont think, I have never met anyone in IT who thinks there should have been a total block on IT related Visas from India however, Governments are famous for kneejerk reactions to problems they dont have the compliance staff to appropriatley police.

If there was better self policing from the main abusers of the system (its not just Indian outsourcers) then we would not be here. Alas, we have ended up here due to a failure of UK/U.S Government to police the system properly not, a failure of people from India.

[avonleigh]

The Trump administration is backpedalling already and it's still the weekend: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/0...rhaul-00574345

In the unlikely event Trump follows through, the Indians will flood the UK with bodies at half the rate. You lot will never work again.

Why would this make any difference to the UK exactly? I fail to see any correlation.

[sadkingbilly]

No. Just pointing out the foolishness of cheering on a dead-end policy that would only result in an even bleaker market for those in the UK.

so who's cheering it on?
not me, for sure.
even though i'm not really threatened by outsourcers*

*most places that tried it, recanted after near disaster scenarios.

[jamesbrown]

No. Just pointing out the foolishness of cheering on a dead-end policy that would only result in an even bleaker market for those in the UK.

It has been widely abused. Adding such a large fee is probably too blunt an instrument, but it has the advantage of targeting generic IT professionals who enter via the lottery and for whom the H-1B was never (or should never have been) intended. Those outside the lottery are the bulk of the true specialists, mostly with Ph.Ds who work in universities or federal government and will be unaffected, I believe. Will be interesting to see how it pans out. A refocus on actual specialists and outstanding talent was past due.

[SussexSeagull]

Speaking as one of that lot that might never work again in the IT industry again (although I have found something else to do), it doesn't cost anything to be civil to one another.