State of the Market

[Fraidycat]

I guess companies have higher debt interest to pay now. Less money to start new projects.

Things could easily get worse from here, although sometimes it is said on here contractors do better in recessions than permies..

[brightondeveloper]

I wonder what the market is like in the rest of Europe? Is this dumpster fire a UK only thing?

[SussexSeagull]

A lot of people mentioning Jobserve not having as many roles as in the past. Worth bearing in mind that it's not the only job board out there and many agents don't use it.

You're always likely to be facing greater competition for roles advertised online. Love them (or mostly hate them it seems), having a solid relationship with a few good agents can help a lot.

Even better, cultivate your network and you might also find those opportunities that aren't widely advertised or be able to go direct, especially with smaller and medium size firms.

I think people refer to Jobserve as it has been around for years and it can give a very rough indicator of the market, plus once you ae setup it is easy to apply for roles. Other than through contacts I am finding LinkedIn jobs the way forward at the moment.

[Bluenose]

I wonder what the market is like in the rest of Europe? Is this dumpster fire a UK only thing?

From my perspective, its hard to say as the Brussels/Swiss/German/Swe/NL contract agents stopped calling me after Brexit.

I know Chef used to be a regular poster in Germany but I don't know of many others on here.

In terms of general market activity versus historical, Jobserve remains a good windsock for telling you where we are. If you look at ITJobswatch (https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/java.do) you get this graph which is telling us we are heading back to a 2012 style bear market in Java that is worse than the peak of the COVID pandemic.

That is bad, that is not good at all if you are a Java dev. 2012 was bad.

[brightondeveloper]

That Java graph doesn't make sense btw - surely "All" should be higher than the others - or is my color blindness kicking in?

I wish I hadn't looked...

[Bluenose]

LOL yeah, thats right folks, the .net contract market is about to be the worst it has been for almost 20 years.

[brightondeveloper]

The top 3 "skills" in the list are:

• agile
• social skills
• finance

So I am not sure what these graphs really show tbh - "Agile" taking 30% of the jobs market and "social skills" apparently taking another 30% "As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK"?

It doesn't make sense unless I am missing something.

[BlueSharp]

The issue with ITJobswatch is it takes the data from Jobserve. I can't remember the last time I got a gig from Jobserve my most recent ones that have not been personal recommendation have been from LinkedIn.

[northernladuk]

The issue with ITJobswatch is it takes the data from Jobserve. I can't remember the last time I got a gig from Jobserve my most recent ones that have not been personal recommendation have been from LinkedIn.

I did find most of the roles I've seen on linkedin were on there but either way, it's only as good as the data it pulls so it's going to include a lot of fishing roles and artificially high rates that are suddenly lower if a) the role actually exists and b) the real rate happens to be 20% less when you apply. Not bad for a finger in the wind but I wouldn't be staking my career on the data on Jobswatch.

[brightondeveloper]

LOL yeah, thats right folks, the .net contract market is about to be the worst it has been for almost 20 years.

or the data has become flooded with nonsensical buzz words.

or there’s another tech that’s kicking arse rn but I don’t see it in the data so meh who knows