State of the Market

[BlueSharp]

Taken a look at the market as coming within two months of the current contract finishing

1) Not a lot out there
2) Remote only is dead
3) M365 seems to be in vogue at the moment (why?)
4) Where are all the AI jobs if it's the next big thing?

[tsmith]

1) Yes, 2) Certainly mostly 'hybrid' - how many years before that disappears completely and its 100% office? Maybe a couple more winters with no lockdowns?
3) Yes just posted that here recently - assuming its partly consolidation in SAAS industry - also M365 does ERP/Supply chain stuff - guessing with costs going up everywhere big companies think they can make savings investing in software?
4) AI replaced all the AI jobs before it even got started - saw an AI product lead role for £1200 a day recently but other than that not seen much - although according to Deloitte 52% of CEOs are looking to invest in AI to replace people errr I mean 'improve productivity' in the next 12 months

[mogga71]

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 present gig is at one the major IB's at Canary Wharf. The vast majority of Contractors are still fully remote and a lot renewing in December and will still be working fully from home. Basically if management want them to come into the Office then they need to pay them more is the general consensus.

[mogga71]

I don't know any senior technologist picking up Jira tickets in a sprint. You may have a few years under your belt, you're not senior though.

I am a data professional of 25 years who picks up Jiras all the time. The Jiras explain what needs to be done (Eg. improving performance of a DB process) and I work out how to do it.

How do the companies you work at operate may I ask?

[mattster]

2) Certainly mostly 'hybrid' - how many years before that disappears completely and its 100% office? Maybe a couple more winters with no lockdowns?

I think in many cases there is a difference between reality and what is advertised. Agree 100%, "remote only" roles are thin on the ground/non-existent for proper positions now, but out of the few contractors I know in "hybrid" roles in London banks at the moment one hasn't been in since November last year and another has a day or two per month max. I myself do 4x days month at a Canary Wharf bank, negotiated down from 2x week (started on 2x month) - which is bearable (but still pointless) - but aforementioned contracting buddies think I am being hard done by.
So upshot is it depends on the gig and you likely won't start fully remote, but you might get most of the way there if you are lucky. Having some visibility into what the actual working conditions are in a particular gig would be very useful before signing up.

[SussexSeagull]

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

100% remote as a default was never going to go on forever and frankly I think going into the office, at least part time, is healthy.

[m0n1k3r]

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

Because of the size of the country and the distribution of cities, countries such as Germany have been practising remote working for a quite long time, and it's common practice to provide an onsite rate and a remote rate, where the remote rate is about 16% to 20% lower than the onsite rate. For a recent request from a client in Germany I provided different rates for working from home and days when I had to be there. I live near an airport with direct, short flights to the client, so it would be doable.

[edison]

Because of the size of the country and the distribution of cities, countries such as Germany have been practising remote working for a quite long time, and it's common practice to provide an onsite rate and a remote rate, where the remote rate is about 16% to 20% lower than the onsite rate. For a recent request from a client in Germany I provided different rates for working from home and days when I had to be there. I live near an airport with direct, short flights to the client, so it would be doable.

Interesting that rates varied whether on site or remote. I worked at a client during Covid where at one point they suggested a 10% rate cut as all contractors were 100% WFH but there was a lot of push back and eventually it was halted.

[michalini]

This guy albeit a graduate 600 applications and 6 months to get his first job

He shared a list of places he applied to on github. Some of the companies are GitHub, GitLab, Mozilla, Facebook. Why don't people start with small companies? Sure, maybe if you have brilliant resume then getting hired by FAANG is easy even for a first job. But if you are averege developer, why not stick with smaller companies which are more likely to hire you than FAANG.

[dsc]

Because of the size of the country and the distribution of cities, countries such as Germany have been practising remote working for a quite long time, and it's common practice to provide an onsite rate and a remote rate, where the remote rate is about 16% to 20% lower than the onsite rate. For a recent request from a client in Germany I provided different rates for working from home and days when I had to be there. I live near an airport with direct, short flights to the client, so it would be doable.

Is this on contracts where it's "all in" as in the contractor covers the costs of getting / staying on site? I'm in contract with a Danish client and the onsite rate was originally 30% more due to me covering all extra costs, but later on they agreed to cover costs and the onsite rate is only 6% more.