State of the Market

[SussexSeagull]

This is more ammunition against the Public Sector rules going over to the Private Sector. At the moment there is no scrutiny on who they recruit but if they are claiming direction and control then surely they can't discriminate with age, sex, race, etc. ?

[robert09]

Personally finding PM / Programme Mgr market quite good.

Just been put forward for Snr Project Manager role at £750pd in Insurance even though I have another offer on the table

I have been looking for a month and not come up with any luck for the next PM role. Any tips on where you are finding your roles?

[pauldee]

I got told on Monday my contract wasn't being renewed - contract finishes tomorrow. So I started applying Monday night for jobs, got an interview yesterday afternoon and had the contract signed by COB. Don't start until January but that's to be expected this time of year.

I'm genuinely not trying to gloat here, I just want to know what I'm doing differently so that I can keep doing it. Possible reasons are:

• My core skill set (.Net/JQuery/SQL Server) is in high demand?
• I have a large wider skill set and keep it current (Angular2/React.JS/MongoDb/Node.js/Java/Spring)
• My day rate may be lower than what some of you are used to (350-400 generally)
• IR35 Status isn't the be all and end all for me
• Flexible on industry
• My location is Manchester (I suspect this is a big part of it)

How does this differ from people who've been on the bench ages? Like I say, I'm genuinely not trying to gloat. I'm sure it could quite easily happen to me, but I think this is worth investigating?

[SussexSeagull]

I am a tester so not a like for like comparison but oddly (in as much as things are normally running down for Christmas about now) the phone has been ringing a lot more this week.

Anecdotally from reading on here, people up North seem to be doing alright. Has the SE and London become oversubscribed?

[pauldee]

I am a tester so not a like for like comparison but oddly (in as much as things are normally running down for Christmas about now) the phone has been ringing a lot more this week.

Anecdotally from reading on here, people up North seem to be doing alright. Has the SE and London become oversubscribed?

Do you think the smart people are getting their contractors in before the January 'rush'?

[nomadd]

Has the SE and London become oversubscribed?

I believe so: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulat...report/dec2016

[SussexSeagull]

Do you think the smart people are getting their contractors in before the January 'rush'?

Entirety possible. Certainly the start of a new quarter and year might be what some of us need.

[SussexSeagull]

I believe so: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulat...report/dec2016

Also the ongoing Southern Rail dispute probably doesn't help.

[northernladuk]

Do you think the smart people are getting their contractors in before the January 'rush'?

No. I think people are getting their contractors in to meet the demand of their projects. I can't believe for one minute any noteable clients fudge their resourcing to meet any markets.

If there is a need the offer will go out. If there isn't they will wait until there is. No point trying to put simple logic to the entire contracting market at seasonal times IMO.

[uk contractor]

Has the SE and London become oversubscribed?

Yeah for sure there are way too many contractors chasing fewer roles in relative terms & a lot of these ads are fake the role does not exist anyway!


I think outside London & the SE its probably slightly easier as less competition & more genuine advertised roles. London & SE as many on here have said is a race to the bottom then wait for the rates to slowly creep up again once its obvious employing work visa contractors for low rates is a very bad idea should hopefully even things out a bit but as always how long can you afford to wait before jumping back in.


6-9 months gaps are not rare right now either I am told by the few agents I speak to at the moment its not uncommon for them to receive 200 CV's per hour of most general roles posted on jobserve & on premium paying roles as many as 500-750 CV's within a few hours.