State of the Market

[GJABS]

You obviously have to concentrate when doing your job to deliver but what about evenings and weekends? And of course, breaks between contracts are a perfect excuse to brush up on skills. Not all new skills need to take months or years to learn either.

I guess you're right. Certainly the gaps I've had between contracts I haven't utilized very well, having focused, if on anything, on things outside of my IT career.

I was talking about this with my therapist a couple of days ago. He suggested that my fear behind not wanting to get much more training might stem from a long term lack of confidence. A belief that I have a lack of a good working memory, that by choosing to learn new things will cause me to forget some of the existing things I know. Which might adversely affect my ability to do my current work. Also the "shaming" that some in the community here had against the idea of learning in the past (recall the criticism of the "paper MCSE" - the person who does all of the Microsoft certifications but is not able to do the job because he doesn't have the corresponding work experience).

My thinking, and I am not sure about this, is that perhaps I should change my attitude a little, away from a focus on the client and the work they need to have done, and instead towards the idea of learning new tech skills for their own sake. This is what I did back when I was 17, and it got me into Cambridge uni. There is something "pure" about study, in that it is always logical and success is not determined by someone's (the client's) opinion but rather upon the successful accumulation of specific facts.
There again, if you read any books on how to be successful they say the opposite, that those who know a lot of facts tend to fall behind those who know a lot of people/are able to solve real business problems. If I can somehow recapture that drive and sense of self esteem that I had back then, perhaps this might be worth it even if it risks alienating the client a bit.

[SueEllen]

GJABS you seemed to have missed all the posts in the past about people doing OU degrees for "fun" before they put the fees up.

Funnily enough I've done a few random courses that have impressed clients.

Also having interviewed people in the past someone studying or doing something random e.g. random degree, painting, fishing, ballroom dancing, boxing, pigeon fancying gives you something to talk about.

[Kprad35]

I am not sure it is me or everyone else can see the change in the interviewing style.

1 ) 6-7 years back if they like you they will offer straightway ( sometimes you get offer before you reach home) - there was an urgency to hire asap.

2 Now even if they like they say they would like to interview more candidates and request more CVs if there aren't enough in the 1st batch who could go past 1st round.Agent says they need more candidates so they can compare and have option to chose the best one.

3) Since the person who is interviewing have not changed in last 6-7 years why can't they make decision and make an offer? Why do they wait longer to hire someone?

Any idea what is going on here?

[GJABS]

I am not sure it is me or everyone else can see the change in the interviewing style.

1 ) 6-7 years back if they like you they will offer straightway ( sometimes you get offer before you reach home) - there was an urgency to hire asap.

2 Now even if they like they say they would like to interview more candidates and request more CVs if there aren't enough in the 1st batch who could go past 1st round.Agent says they need more candidates so they can compare and have option to chose the best one.

3) Since the person who is interviewing have not changed in last 6-7 years why can't they make decision and make an offer? Why do they wait longer to hire someone?

Any idea what is going on here?

+1
My current contract was around 4 weeks between interview and getting an offer. And then a further month doing on-boarding things. My current client is super-organised; it sometimes feels like the work required in working along with this degree of order is more work than the organisation itself saves. But logically this is unlikely to be true, as it is a large company.

[Bluenose]

umI started work in 2000. My starting salary was 32k per annum and market was in full swing. I remember there being a contractor there on £100ph plus overtime. I have never seen that rate again.

This is where we were in 2022 for Deliotte Digital, the 2023 rate card has not been posted yet. These guys posted almost 20% in growth and about $2bn in revenue.

[PCTNN]

umI started work in 2000. My starting salary was 32k per annum

I started work in 2013 and my starting salary as a junior UX designer was 35k in a retail bank. 10 years later and the very same role at the very same bank pays 37-40k. Very depressing.

A permanent senior UX designer in the public sector client I'm currently at pays 39-43k. And then they ask themselves why nobody applies to their vacancies and so they're forced to hired contractors.

[PerfectStorm]

thanks to all the contractors who let companies row back on the remote working stuff by not standing firm - seeing a lot of low grade hybrid working roles this week

[PCTNN]

thanks to all the contractors who let companies row back on the remote working stuff by not standing firm - seeing a lot of low grade hybrid working roles this week

Did you have any doubts?

Instead of standing firm, contractors kept their heads down and took it when the whole ir35 thing happened, why did you think they'd stand firm for something less important than that?

[biergarten]

thanks to all the contractors who let companies row back on the remote working stuff by not standing firm - seeing a lot of low grade hybrid working roles this week

my impression is that the whole remote working is what is lowering the number of contracts and rates in the uk

[avonleigh]

thanks to all the contractors who let companies row back on the remote working stuff by not standing firm - seeing a lot of low grade hybrid working roles this week

Sorry but this is hardly fair. An awful job market for quite a long time now means some people don't have the option of 'standing firm'.