State of the Market

[cojak]

State of the Market

Technicals will find work in the future by having a full stack of skills. Coders will need to be able to test and work on networks, testers will need to code and work on networks and networks people will need to be able to test and code. Anyone with 'administrator' in their job title has to learn to at least code because their job will disappear first.

[eek]

15% of all IT Contract advertisements ask for HTML5 as a skill ... so not quite dead yet

HTML5 Contracts, Contractor Rates for HTML5 Skills

Yep but nows its a low level essential skill that isn't worth much. The market rate of the other languagesrequired will determine the rate being offered.

[uk contractor]

Back on topic I think the IT industry in UK is going through a massive raft of changes in a very short period of time regardless of IT sector or discipline:

1: Onshoring is alive & well. I know of one in a well known & expensive part of London which is effectively a load of indian workers manning phones on a high st. They do not even bother trying to hide it either this office is next to a busy main road yet you can clearly see in the windows (obviously never heard of blinds or curtains!) their wall mounted scripts & the fact that they are manning phones which are redirected offshore then back onshore! How many others are operating in the UK with curtains up so to speak! Lots probably this is one reason why genuine IT vacancies are dropping rapidly.
2: Then you have the genuine offshoring model where the workers are actually based offshore & their work is phonecall redirected from UK offshore. Balance sheet bottom line rules so no-one can prevent that.
3: Finally due to how easy work permits are handed out (like candy I hear) many foreign IT workers are working in the UK earning a fraction of what the market rate should be thereby undermining the UK IT industry & the workers. The government seem oblivious to this & or unprepared to enforce a hard line policy like other nations do.

As long as the accountants are running the show I do not see things changing apart from getting way worse genuine vacancies wise.

[Cirrus]

As long as the accountants are running the show I do not see things changing apart from getting way worse genuine vacancies wise.

I don't think it's accountants.

It's IT managers.

If you run some part of an organisation's IT service (or all of it) you are going to be under severe budget pressure almost everywhere. If you can get some cheap people (and tell them the risk is with them: they've got to deliver to get paid) then you are going to be sorely tempted. Whether or not it causes pain and chaos is not going to break the deal. Your business customers will understand a bit of delay, incompetence and live failures if it's case of that or nothing.

The best case I remember was a well known credit scoring company. New IT Management came in outsourced everything to India (without any process, design or meaningful handover) and told all the staff they needed a new career. I arrived part way through this and it was utterly manic - shouting, crying, sackings, 7-day weeks, sleeping on the floor overnight. But at the end of it they saved £millions and the customers said they were still as happy as before.

[tomtomagain]

15% of all IT Contract advertisements ask for HTML5 as a skill ... so not quite dead yet

HTML5 Contracts, Contractor Rates for HTML5 Skills

OK. But what I meant was HTML was the only skill you needed. Now HTML/HTML5/CSS maybe required for a job but you are unlikely to get that contract on the basis of only having that as a skill, you would also be expected to bring a whole heap of other skills to the party.

Back in the mid 90's literally just knowing HTML was enough to secure a contract. <b>Unbelievable.</b>

[AndrewK]

I don't think it's accountants.

It's IT managers.

If you run some part of an organisation's IT service (or all of it) you are going to be under severe budget pressure almost everywhere. If you can get some cheap people (and tell them the risk is with them: they've got to deliver to get paid) then you are going to be sorely tempted. Whether or not it causes pain and chaos is not going to break the deal. Your business customers will understand a bit of delay, incompetence and live failures if it's case of that or nothing.

The best case I remember was a well known credit scoring company. New IT Management came in outsourced everything to India (without any process, design or meaningful handover) and told all the staff they needed a new career. I arrived part way through this and it was utterly manic - shouting, crying, sackings, 7-day weeks, sleeping on the floor overnight. But at the end of it they saved £millions and the customers said they were still as happy as before.

It is actually same as to claim that DONGFENG is same as Porsche – both are cars. Yes it doesn't drive as well but if you buy it you will save xxx.
It is accountants show, this is why all customer support is so miserable. 99% are waste of time script monkeys, but hey we have “customer support”. It just new norm in everything – cost saving.
For this exact reason small players like Fintech and all others small players will have a lot of opportunities – they focuses on actual product development, not cost saving for saving purpose.

[LondonManc]

Unfortunately I think it will be a patient game as people slowly realise that quality does count. Not only that, but how low can tax revenues get from Joe Public before HMG realise that they need people in decent jobs to be positive contributors rather than negative contributors to the tax pot? We've got to keep these refugees in fancy houses somehow.

[oliverson]

OK. But what I meant was HTML was the only skill you needed. Now HTML/HTML5/CSS maybe required for a job but you are unlikely to get that contract on the basis of only having that as a skill, you would also be expected to bring a whole heap of other skills to the party.

Back in the mid 90's literally just knowing HTML was enough to secure a contract. <b>Unbelievable.</b>

Don't you mean <blink>Unbelievable.</blink>?

[MrMarkyMark]

OK. But what I meant was HTML was the only skill you needed. Now HTML/HTML5/CSS maybe required for a job but you are unlikely to get that contract on the basis of only having that as a skill, you would also be expected to bring a whole heap of other skills to the party.

Back in the mid 90's literally just knowing HTML was enough to secure a contract. <b>Unbelievable.</b>

Suity managed to secure contracts, up until fairly recently, knowing a hell of a lot less than that

[silverlight001]

Sounds all doom and gloom to me but as a previous poster said the "market" is not a single entity.

Two mates of mine (Snr PM's) recently landed contracts on better rates straight after the last contract came to an end.

I think contract dev's are facing a lot of pressures and there is a lot of oversupply due to potentially less experienced contractors / CV's with record of short term contracts.