State of the Market

[Fraidycat]

Wow, that's an amazing and depressing stat.
I haven't looked into it, you are probably right.
The minimum wage has gone up quite a bit, especially in recent times.

The adult minimum wage is over £20K a year these days, so getting paid £120K should mean 6 times more, but after tax it is only 4x. For inside contractors the additional employers NI means it is just 3.5x what an unskilled worker who doesn't even have to know English for many jobs.

[sreed]

The minimum wage in the UK has tripled since year 2000 but skilled pay hasn't even doubled.

A skilled worker on £50K only takes home just 2x what someone on minimum wage does. And the MW worker will get paid for any overtime, closing the gap even more.

A permie on £120K only makes 4x minimum wage after tax. Inside IR35 contractors billing £120K fare even worse, taking home just 3.5 time minimum wage.

The UK is high tax low pay for highly skilled people.

The minimum wage comparison you’ve made is correct but that’s down to a distinctly UK emphasis on minimising the impact of tax on low income earners which you don’t see in other comparable European countries. Someone earning 20k in the UK has an effective tax rate of 12% which that would 20-25% in most other W European countries.

At higher wages, the effective tax rate at 50-100-200k is comparable or lower than most other Western European countries. You could argue that we get a lot less bang for the tax-buck but that’s to do with extreme political short-termism and an overly centralised command-and-control system enthusiastically supported by the great British public.

Plus, for higher/additional rate taxpayers, very few countries offer such generous tax shelters such as a 20k ISA allowance, 60k pension allowance, salary sacrifice schemes, etc. or the leeway (admittedly less generous than it used to be) to carry out disguised employment through a limited company.

[ResistanceFighter]

Back on the market today, been looking the last few weeks and having same experience as many here - very quiet!

[northernladuk]

Back on the market today, been looking the last few weeks and having same experience as many here - very quiet!

Not sure when you were last on the market but be prepared. Quiet is only half of your problems. In my recent experience things have changed and I think others confirmed.

It appears any role that pops up will have a lot of applicants. If it is an outside one it will have a ton of complete and utter chancers as well. I applied for a well paid service management outside role someone mentioned on linkedin and of the 7 or 8 people that commented they'd applied there were two project managers, an accountant, a housing manager and someone else. Utter waste of time but you are up against that which makes the agents sorting even harder.

From what I saw the agents are generally removing any direct comms methods so no ringing them up, winning them over and them watching for your CV so you know they've eyeballed it. It's fire and forget in to a massive number of applicants and wasters. I've not been short listed for gigs I've literally been doing day in day out for a decade which has never happened before. They've found enough people in the first pass they never even got to me and closed it.

It's top of your game stuff. CV has to be spot on, tailored to make you look like you are the best possible candidate, you've got to get it in fast and somehow get hold of the agent though the backdoor and then there is dealing with the client. The number of roles that evaporated or I actually got passed over after interview was a shock to me. There are enough people that have either been doing exactly that role or have been a bit liberal with the truth on their CV. Either way, more than ever, you have to demonstrate you've done the gig before because others will.

So it's quiet and it's tough. Double whammy. Time for the A game so be prepared.

[BigDataPro]

Not sure when you were last on the market but be prepared. Quiet is only half of your problems. In my recent experience things have changed and I think others confirmed.

It appears any role that pops up will have a lot of applicants. If it is an outside one it will have a ton of complete and utter chancers as well. I applied for a well paid service management outside role someone mentioned on linkedin and of the 7 or 8 people that commented they'd applied there were two project managers, an accountant, a housing manager and someone else. Utter waste of time but you are up against that which makes the agents sorting even harder.

From what I saw the agents are generally removing any direct comms methods so no ringing them up, winning them over and them watching for your CV so you know they've eyeballed it. It's fire and forget in to a massive number of applicants and wasters. I've not been short listed for gigs I've literally been doing day in day out for a decade which has never happened before. They've found enough people in the first pass they never even got to me and closed it.

It's top of your game stuff. CV has to be spot on, tailored to make you look like you are the best possible candidate, you've got to get it in fast and somehow get hold of the agent though the backdoor and then there is dealing with the client. The number of roles that evaporated or I actually got passed over after interview was a shock to me. There are enough people that have either been doing exactly that role or have been a bit liberal with the truth on their CV. Either way, more than ever, you have to demonstrate you've done the gig before because others will.

So it's quiet and it's tough. Double whammy. Time for the A game so be prepared.

Accurate description of the current market.

On top of it, for most of the roles, they dictate too many skillsets that are all over the place.

If there is a gap in your CV, get creative and be liberal!

[JustKeepSwimming]

If there is a gap in your CV, get creative and be liberal!

Surely you just go with 'I had health issues that have now resolved'. Not even the bloodsuckers are going to pry into what it was.

[BigDataPro]

Surely you just go with 'I had health issues that have now resolved'. Not even the bloodsuckers are going to pry into what it was.

I tried with 'health issues, family issues, great-great-grandfather passed away' etc but it didn't work. If there's a gap, CV gets rejected straight away. This is the current scenario.

[JustKeepSwimming]

I tried with 'health issues, family issues, great-great-grandfather passed away' etc but it didn't work. If there's a gap, CV gets rejected straight away.

Ah you mean the sift. What do you think worked best?

[BigDataPro]

Ah you mean the sift. What do you think worked best?

Being inconspicuous!

[dsc]

[...]It appears any role that pops up will have a lot of applicants. If it is an outside one it will have a ton of complete and utter chancers as well. I applied for a well paid service management outside role someone mentioned on linkedin and of the 7 or 8 people that commented they'd applied there were two project managers, an accountant, a housing manager and someone else. Utter waste of time but you are up against that which makes the agents sorting even harder.[...]

What's the best guess re amount of applicants? I know some are chancers, but there must also be enough reasonable candidates in the pot as well and they have to come from somewhere.