State of the Market

[SussexSeagull]

0 days in the office and you better be brilliant otherwise the work will be off-shored.

Current project (and client) is 0 days in the office but I'm not taking that as the future.

If people don't want to go to an office and can find work that allows them to do that then fine. However there is someone I connected with in LinkedIn for some reason I can't remember who is obviously getting a bit desperate to find a new contract but mentions he doesn't want to go into an office unless absolutely necessary more or less before anything else.

[PerfectStorm]

If people don't want to go to an office and can find work that allows them to do that then fine. However there is someone I connected with in LinkedIn for some reason I can't remember who is obviously getting a bit desperate to find a new contract but mentions he doesn't want to go into an office unless absolutely necessary more or less before anything else.

Its also often the first line on job role ads.

Times are changing. People are reclaiming their lives - what little of them they have left to use. Will you (rhetorically) be joining in?

[sreed]

If people don't want to go to an office and can find work that allows them to do that then fine. However there is someone I connected with in LinkedIn for some reason I can't remember who is obviously getting a bit desperate to find a new contract but mentions he doesn't want to go into an office unless absolutely necessary more or less before anything else.

As a PM, all the private-sector contracts (mostly small/mid-sized fintech firms) that I've done since the pandemic begun have been fully remote with no expectation of visiting the client's office other than the one-off meeting or event once every few months or so.

As far as I can tell, there are plenty of fully remote (with ad-hoc travel) roles out there, at least in my line of work.

I'm currently working a public sector contract where there's a requirement to have logged in at their nearest office at least twice a week. It's a pain in the arse with no obvious benefit (as the people I work with are spread across the country) but apparently the minister wants to see a spreadsheet every week showing a minimum occupancy level in the regional offices which they spent a lot of money on and signed 25 year leases for just before the pandemic hit. Talk about bad timing!

My manager (who initially said that the 2 days policy doesn't apply to contractors and that I needn't come in but reversed that later) said that I could just drop into the cafe on the first floor, connect to the office WiFi and that would suffice to mark me as 'present' on their MI.

While I would never consider a fully office based contract until the kids left home and it was no more than a 15-20 minute drive away, I would look at hybrid roles (1-2 days a week) if the contract paid a premium to compensate for the hassle of a regular commute and subjecting myself to our piss-poor rail service.

[Fraidycat]

Can I just check we all got the memo about not throwing fellow contractors under the bus by accepting "X days in office" roles?

How many months on the bench would it take before you accepted a 5 day/full time in the office contract?

[PerfectStorm]

How many months on the bench would it take before you accepted a 5 day/full time in the office contract?

quite a few; may as well look at alternative avenues by that point. Life is too short.

[SussexSeagull]

I have been into an office twice since lockdown without actually going out of my way to have that arrangement so am perfectly aware of the joys of it but the contracts I am in discussions with now mainly seem to involve some visits to the office varying from a couple off times a week to once in a blue moon. TBH if the money is right it doesn't really bother me as I am in a service industry.

If you can get along flat out refusing to ever visit an office then fair enough but I suspect it will become more difficult to achieve.

[gixxer2021]

Can I just check we all got the memo about not throwing fellow contractors under the bus by accepting "X days in office" roles?

100% Not set foot in an office for over 4 years and no intention to in the future. Always make sure it’s written into my contracts, so there’s no change of heart after I’ve just started…

[GigiBronz]

I will leave this one here.

Job Listings Abound, but Many Are Fake:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/that-pl...ghost-3aafc794

I’ve been on the bench since November, the issue is not that I am not good enough to get the roles…
I do not even get the chance to prove that I am not good enough .
The phone has barely rang since November.

I get the occasional perm recruiter with the ~75k role for a great company, hybrid in London. To which I often respond:
”My rent and bills are 3k, the other costs associated with existing in London ~1.5k.
If I were to accept a position that barely covers my modest lifestyle, wouldn’t that be indentured servitude with few extra steps?”
Some of the lough, I tend not to as the pain registers as I say it…

[Bluenose]

Can I just check we all got the memo about not throwing fellow contractors under the bus by accepting "X days in office" roles?

Since RBS London campuses went ad-hoc/fully remote in 2014 (and many others followed suit) I have not been forced into the office for almost 10 years now.

The only roles I have seen for 3-5 days in the office are those attached to the Military/Police/Associated Agencies etc.

[TheDude]

Can I just check we all got the memo about not throwing fellow contractors under the bus by accepting "X days in office" roles?

I accepted two days for a 40% rate increase.

I kind of regret it and dread every Wednesday and Thursday however I would like to thank TFL and the rail unions for doing what they can to help.