State of the Market

[DrewG]

Speaking as someone who is a month into a well paid (by my standards) contract after six months out, I am quite keen to do it for as long as possible. This will involve, most weeks, a once a week visit to the office involving a six hour round trip and staying up there nearer release time.

I had to gently deal with a Test Manager who didn’t appreciate I don’t live round the corner and can’t just pop in the office in the first couple of weeks.

It’s called managing client expectations while being mindful of IR35 implications and not selling your soul.

Always amazes me that contractors can’t do that.

What do you do that has seen no new work come up for SIX MONTHS!

I've been contracting since 2009 and I've never been in that position.

[TheGreenBastard]

Utter rubbish. Name me a supplier that's come on a clients site and hasn't stepped up when there are problems. Delivering a good quality service to a client even when it's going tits up has absolutely **** all to do with being treated like staff and letting them. What should a supplier do when the client is in the crap? Work to rule and walk off when the clock hits 5? Poppycock (within reason of course). Converse to your argument if I have a SoW and deliverables and something in the project is making it difficult to hit those deliverables you put the time in to hit them, something a permie wouldn't do.

And to the other detractors. I earn over 100k a year from my client, market is tulipe, I want more business from my client and I certainly don't want to be treated like the dick of the project because I'm working to rule when times are tough. So I put some extra time in when it's needed. I agree, it has to be balanced and there has to be something in it for me. Most clients, granted not all, will recognise the work and will reciprocate in some form. Billing when not working, more work, afternoons on the golf course while working. All can be negotiated if the work you do is recognised. Worked well for me on a number of gigs.

But if you want to do the bare minimum and struggle through then be my guest.

Caveat, this is time is well managed and must be reciprocated. I agree just doing it like a drone for absolutely no benefit is not smart.. but there can be good benefits to be found if you manage it properly.

Nice copium, who's your dealer?

Perhaps making sure projects don't go tits up in the first place might stop your slave owner demand you be a good little boy and do extra hours; that sounds less like "good quality service" and more like "incompetence".

[SussexSeagull]

What do you do that has seen no new work come up for SIX MONTHS!

I've been contracting since 2009 and I've never been in that position.

Here we go.

I am a tester but before you go into a lecture about updating skills or specialising there are plenty of non testers seeing similar lengths of time out.

Unless you have had to find a new contract in the current environment I really wouldn't comment.

[PerfectStorm]

Definitely a few contractors on here angling for a special gold star from their manager.

People have had a scarcity mindset around work since the credit crunch - get over it and see your opportunities as abundant. Because they are.

[eek]

Definitely a few contractors on here angling for a special gold star from their manager.

People have had a scarcity mindset around work since the credit crunch - get over it and see your opportunities as abundant. Because they are.

Anyone remember the last time Jobserve only has 11,000 vacancies in the UK

[malvolio]

What do you do that has seen no new work come up for SIX MONTHS!

I've been contracting since 2009 and I've never been in that position.

That is the problem. I was pretty high up the tree in terms of skills and income, but my work was mostly short to medium term remediation. improvement or programme recovery work. Such roles don't come up every day, are highly strategic and often limited to specific industry verticals. As a result on average I worked 7 months a year. On the other hand I was dealing with £10-£100 million pieces of work...

The people that sit on a never ending supply of work either have very good localised networks - i know several PMs that step between the same two or three banking clients for years on end - or have readily available bulk skills, but you could argue that 90% of the them are on inside IR35 roles anyway, whether thy admit it or not.

What they are not is something special and somehow more successful than us high level specialists.

[PerfectStorm]

Anyone remember the last time Jobserve only has 11,000 vacancies in the UK

I get that that’s a thing, but 80-90% of my contracts come from people phoning in.

your CV should be SEO-optimised enough, that people find you based on the keywords that there is work available for. Is it?

[eek]

I get that that’s a thing, but 80-90% of my contracts come from people phoning in.

your CV should be SEO-optimised enough, that people find you based on the keywords that there is work available for. Is it?

I have 2 pet agents I use who shop me around when I'm available - the point was that vacancies numbers are way down and at almost 2020 levels

[Bluenose]

Anyone remember the last time Jobserve only has 11,000 vacancies in the UK

I did track it during the pandemic and posted the numbers in this thread.

The pandemic bottom was 2,850, post lockdown and that's all-in as well, the same as your number - perm and contract.

I wonder if someone will pop up on London bridge with a wooden, painted job sign again and whether it will be an I.T bod or a recruitment consultant this time.

[Fraidycat]

Jobserve was at 50,000 about 10 days ago. That was the last of the April bounce.

I often get the impression that they sometimes clean out the database and forget to add jobs back in, and the number drops because of that, only to then recover later. But these could be legit low numbers. Will know by this time next week.