State of the Market

[edison]

Had several calls with agents this week, nothing much happening in the private sector given ongoing uncertainty with lockdown. Some interest in the public sector. Been forwarded a couple of leads for perm roles which still seems more hopeful than contract.

Meanwhile I'm working with two startups, one of which has asked me today if I want to join their advisory board which sounds promising, so a better end to the week than has been the case recently.

[BigDataPro]

sort of.

AI uses mostly grads. They are cheap.
Big Data should be a good market but the consultancies have most of that.
Crypto - again grads
Cloud - yes indeed. Best thing about this one is that experience is worth more than qualifications. And experience is where contractors can/should add real value.

I have noticed recently that the requirements are looking for broad set of skills rather than specialist skills. For instance I do bit of Cloud, Data Engineering, Data Modeling, just enough DevOps and Programming. I can see that this combination has generated lot of interest. But nearly 50%-60% are for permanent opportunities.

[BigDataPro]

Any high level language will do. I am not sure we have a job spec out there for the software roles at the moment but being as all teams need people your exact skills are not a filter because if you are a good engineer then you will fit somewhere. We have been hiring graduates as well as experienced engineers.

Apart from someone who really knows Linux for the IT team - we are quite keen for one of those!

Are they (SBU) kicking Infosys out?

[MyUserName]

Are they (SBU) kicking Infosys out?

Not so much that. We are just expanding from a small company to a medium size one and are using more Linux servers so we could do with more experts in that area.

[AndrewK]

Can't comment on the contract world anymore *sniff* but we are hiring permie engineers as fast as we can find them.

We detect and combat illegal stock market trading, based in London by Liverpool Street Station and use C#, SQL, BigData etc. but we are after pretty much anyone clever as we have an insane amount of work backlogged.

If you want to drop out of contracts back into permie world then give me a shout if this sounds interesting.

If you have all mentioned experience, the problem is not lack of jobs. The problem is "adequate salary".
And you can't find engineers fast enough, only if you are offering a "market rate".
If not secret, what is the salary range?

[Hairlocks]

Apart from someone who really knows Linux for the IT team - we are quite keen for one of those!

Is that an apart from a Linux guy he can be a contractor? I know linux very well, but I am not ready to go perme yet.

[Bluenose]

Something very odd to me. If anything rates should be at all time highs now after the endless lockdowns.

[Gould The Swimmer]

I won't ask how you've been finding the market then.

I've picked up 3 weeks work doing some theming for a graphics bureau in London but the rate is 40% lower than my normal rate. At the end of the day it will buy me an extra months survival should it go to the wire.

That's how I'm looking at things and that's how worried I am.

...and I've just heard they're going to bump me to April1 so should be able to add nicely to that cushion that keeps me from Skid Row ?

[Bluenose]

...and I've just heard they're going to bump me to April1 so should be able to add nicely to that cushion that keeps me from Skid Row ?

April 1 2022?

Sorry guys to be responding to these posts in this way but it is almost as if the evidence from the past 100 pages is being ignored.

The evidence is saying '200 applications per role' and it has been that way since March last year, thats almost 12 months. Unless you are contracted through to April 2022 expect to be benched for the entirety of 2021.

If, through some lottery (because thats what it is out there at the minute) you bag a role in April then you will be like the chap on the previous page wondering how he ended up being chosen and thank your blessings.

Skill and experience level means near zero in a bear market as brutal as this one, connections and contacts mean almost everything.

[SteelyDan]

...connections and contacts mean almost everything.

This is exactly how I got my current role. I'm not an avid LI user, but I got contacted thru that medium by one of my, very few, contacts who I'd worked with some 6 years ago.