State of the Market

[uk contractor]

Hi All - first time posting here. I have read the discussion of the UK Job Market with interest and can also say from my current experience that it is terrible right now. Ive been looking for 5 months now and despite a busy December where i thought i had something in the bag - the new year has been dire so far. Had hoped it would start picking up but its now March and Im not seeing the improvement in the new year that I expected. For the few roles that are out there - employers are being overly picking, not knowing what they are looking for, taking forever to respond after an interview - if at all. Have had my time wasted by a few companies who i'm not sure were serious about hiring in the first place! tulipe rates/fixed term contracts are rife. Everyone i speak to says there are too many candidates out there.

Have to seriously consider the perm route now which is not easy either but I cant see the market picking up any time soon and wonder if the contractor bubble has well and truly burst!

This is why we do not need any IT workers on Visas perhaps we could look at it again in 5 years time but for the immediate future there is no shortage of UK IT talent on the bench gathering dust! In US they have something like 93M people economically inactive in UK its around 9.3M yet we have allowed tens of thousands of IT visa workers so you do not need to be a genius to understand home grown talent will get pushed away by much cheaper visa worker options. To even get your CV past the recruiter is becoming tough as well due to a lot of them only sending the cheapest candidate not the best!

[SueEllen]

This is why we do not need any IT workers on Visas perhaps we could look at it again in 5 years time but for the immediate future there is no shortage of UK IT talent on the bench gathering dust! In US they have something like 93M people economically inactive in UK its around 9.3M yet we have allowed tens of thousands of IT visa workers so you do not need to be a genius to understand home grown talent will get pushed away by much cheaper visa worker options. To even get your CV past the recruiter is becoming tough as well due to a lot of them only sending the cheapest candidate not the best!

Ahh but the business leaders say you guys don't have the right skills and as it costs money to train people up, they want to hire them already "trained" from India NOW

[sal]

Have to seriously consider the perm route now which is not easy either but I cant see the market picking up any time soon and wonder if the contractor bubble has well and truly burst!

nah, just weeding out the chaf, seems to be working.

[PrestonChris]

I'm very much hoping it picks up after April , new budgets etc !!

Have an interview for a perm role tomorrow , can't say i'm enthused at the prospect :-(

Make sure there are opportunities to climb - could be a different pathway to riches.

Well I got the Perm role , quite happy with it to be honest , first time working in manchester centre and its a fairly easy commute (train takes 38 mins)

Chance to train into Oracle cloud financial and OIBEE and use a few new tools that seem to be in vogue , Jira etc

[SueEllen]

Well I got the Perm role , quite happy with it to be honest , first time working in manchester centre and its a fairly easy commute (train takes 38 mins)

Chance to train into Oracle cloud financial and OIBEE and use a few new tools that seem to be in vogue , Jira etc

You haven't had the displeasure of using Jira!?!

[PrestonChris]

You haven't had the displeasure of using Jira!?!

It can't be any worse than Remedy !

Although I hope it doesn't mean we have all this Agile nonsense

My mate speaks of basketballs being thrown around stand up meetings

[BlasterBates]

Don't have any problem with Jira, seems to work perfectly well. It's the agile method (or lack of ) that causes all the problems

[SussexSeagull]

nah, just weeding out the chaf, seems to be working.

Certainly if you have a more soft skill focussed role you are in a better position than the more technically focussed contractors but anyone who thinks they are immune to a combination of the market being saturated, off shoring, the HMRC and the wider economy needs a rethink.

[sal]

Certainly if you have a more soft skill focussed role you are in a better position than the more technically focussed contractors but anyone who thinks they are immune to a combination of the market being saturated, off shoring, the HMRC and the wider economy needs a rethink.

I was commenting on the "contractor bubble" bursting. The only thing that can be constituted a contractor bubble is the increase of permitractors in the last couple of years in the face of people with permi attitude, only going contracting for the money. These people usually buckle down quickly after 1-2 months bench time and run back to permiedom.

In no way i consider myself immune to market forces or HMRC whims. But I don't think that contracting is going anywhere anytime soon, as there will always be a demand for flexible and skilled work force.

[m0n1k3r]

This is why we do not need any IT workers on Visas perhaps we could look at it again in 5 years time but for the immediate future there is no shortage of UK IT talent on the bench gathering dust! In US they have something like 93M people economically inactive in UK its around 9.3M yet we have allowed tens of thousands of IT visa workers so you do not need to be a genius to understand home grown talent will get pushed away by much cheaper visa worker options. To even get your CV past the recruiter is becoming tough as well due to a lot of them only sending the cheapest candidate not the best!

The client will be charged the same anyway so that they can increase their own margins.