State of the Market

[LondonManc]

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.

Quite possibly a key factor. Chancers going contracting after 2-3 years and being no better than an equivalent, but far cheaper, option in Prague, Warsaw et al isn't doing UK contractors any favours.

[LondonManc]

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

<marquee> for the win!

[oliverson]

<marquee> for the win!

ha ha ha - fair play. You got it.

[SussexSeagull]

Slightly different but I had to do a test on 'Testing Fundamentals' the other evening. Been doing it for eighteen years and it wasn't that good a daily rate.

Seems to be the way it is going now.

Apparently my Test Scenarios were unusable, putting aside the fact I have been producing Test Scenarios for 18 years without any complaint.

Now you may point out that this might be a case of me not being up to scratch, and you might be right, but not long after the agent got in touch I saw the job re-advertised. Are they seriously saying with the current levels of available testers in the market, they couldn't find seven suitable ones to do a basic testing job?

That reeks a bit of advertising a job for 28 days before looking abroad to save money.

Regardless, I have an interview for a permanent job next week as the Testing contract market just looks broken.

[LondonManc]

Apparently my Test Scenarios were unusable, putting aside the fact I have been producing Test Scenarios for 18 years without any complaint.

Now you may point out that this might be a case of me not being up to scratch, and you might be right, but not long after the agent got in touch I saw the job re-advertised. Are they seriously saying with the current levels of available testers in the market, they couldn't find seven suitable ones to do a basic testing job?

That reeks a bit of advertising a job for 28 days before looking abroad to save money.

Regardless, I have an interview for a permanent job next week as the Testing contract market just looks broken.

Who could you raise this as an issue to? Your MP?

[SussexSeagull]

Who could you raise this as an issue to? Your MP?

I can't really provide definitive evidence and they would probably just claim they can't find seven suitable people, which of course in the current climate is nonsense.

[LondonManc]

I can't really provide definitive evidence and they would probably just claim they can't find seven suitable people, which of course in the current climate is nonsense.

But they're a known onshorer of bobs?

[SussexSeagull]

But they're a known onshorer of bobs?

Not that I know of. The other option is the recruiting manager is being unbelievably picky to the point of impossibility but either way if you can't find seven testers to do a very good job for you in the current market you really need to have a look at yourself.

[squarepeg]

Apparently my Test Scenarios were unusable, putting aside the fact I have been producing Test Scenarios for 18 years without any complaint.

Now you may point out that this might be a case of me not being up to scratch, and you might be right, but not long after the agent got in touch I saw the job re-advertised. Are they seriously saying with the current levels of available testers in the market, they couldn't find seven suitable ones to do a basic testing job?

That reeks a bit of advertising a job for 28 days before looking abroad to save money.

Regardless, I have an interview for a permanent job next week as the Testing contract market just looks broken.

There is good money to be made in testing, but not in "basic" testing (whatever that means). Outside of large organisations testing jobs are done by either programmers themselves, PMs, product owners, everyone in the office, offshore testers in India, or on platforms like AWS Device Farm. What I'd look at is learning how to design and write tests that run on AWS Device Farm. This is the direction the industry is going.

[SussexSeagull]

There is good money to be made in testing, but not in "basic" testing (whatever that means). Outside of large organisations testing jobs are done by either programmers themselves, PMs, product owners, everyone in the office, offshore testers in India, or on platforms like AWS Device Farm. What I'd look at is learning how to design and write tests that run on AWS Device Farm. This is the direction the industry is going.

There certainly seems to be a move towards automation. Problem is that automated testing is difficult to pick up on the fly and when you get past record and replay and basic scripting (e.g. putting in delays) it is more development than testing. Why a fully paid up developer would want to go into automated testing is beyond easy but that is a conversation for another time. He actual test cases should be designed by a Test Analyst as well.

I agree business resource is getting used to do more testing. This had a place but is no replacement for getting a specialist to do it.

Sadly this seems to be an old fashioned view.

Anyway, I have an interview for a permanent job this week. Will be a downgrade in lifestyle but if you are having six months or more between contracts the financial argument for contracting doesn't add up anymore.