State of the Market

[Cirrus]

A lot of Testers I talk to are really struggling at the moment ... and a lot of foreign workers come in over the last few years.

At my last client site Cognizant had a test lead and an account manager on site and ten or twenty testers in India. It all worked very well and so cheap - maybe £150 per day.

[tomtomagain]

It was niche, but is now inundated with Indian immigrants? might be me, but it can't have been that niche then....

No skill remains "Niche" for long. It's just market economics.

Skill is in demand and therefore attracts a premium rate.

Premium rate attracts more and more contractors, consultancies and outsourced suppliers.

Eventually "Premium skill" is just a plain old, skill that nobody is willing to pay more than the minimum for, market for that skill is oversupplied and the price crashes.

Layered on top of that is the general health of the economy and progress in computing that has a habit of obsoleting "skills" rather quickly.

That's why as a contractor you have to always keep an eye on the future and ensure you are picking up new skills/libraries/techniques, even if most of the things you learn never actually become in-demand.

Back in 1996 - 98 you could get paid £400-500 per day just for knowing HTML. You wouldn't get £20 for it now.

[SueEllen]

At my last client site Cognizant had a test lead and an account manager on site and ten or twenty testers in India. It all worked very well and so cheap - maybe £150 per day.

You only know if it was money well spent if the system doesn't go down and if it does there is a back up.

Maybe someone should have told Asda that point today...

[SussexSeagull]

At my last client site Cognizant had a test lead and an account manager on site and ten or twenty testers in India. It all worked very well and so cheap - maybe £150 per day.

Problem is at that sort of rates contractors can't compete and it is getting to the point it is cheaper than getting in people on FTC.

[Cirrus]

Problem is at that sort of rates contractors can't compete and it is getting to the point it is cheaper than getting in people on FTC.

I also had C# developers in South Africa. They were dead cheap, spoke fluent English, added tons of domain knowledge, and built working software quickly and competently despite all the chaos coming from here in the wonderful UK.

Maybe plain vanilla - however lovingly prepared - is no longer enough to hack it in contracting.

[SussexSeagull]

I also had C# developers in South Africa. They were dead cheap, spoke fluent English, added tons of domain knowledge, and built working software quickly and competently despite all the chaos coming from here in the wonderful UK.

Maybe plain vanilla - however lovingly prepared - is no longer enough to hack it in contracting.

Then it's over.

Decent testers and developers add a lot more than testing and development but we can't even get a foot in the door anymore to make our case. I don't think it is a specific problem to contracting either as it is hitting permanent roles as well.

I don't care how niche you think your skills are or how good your soft skills are, the accountants will keep on looking for savings and one day they will look at what you do and what value you can add will lose out to short term savings.

[AndrewK]

Then it's over.

Decent testers and developers add a lot more than testing and development but we can't even get a foot in the door anymore to make our case. I don't think it is a specific problem to contracting either as it is hitting permanent roles as well.

I don't care how niche you think your skills are or how good your soft skills are, the accountants will keep on looking for savings and one day they will look at what you do and what value you can add will lose out to short term savings.

For strange reason looks like we live in parallel worlds. Every time i have to work with Cognizant it is like working with Somalia pirates. Developers with "10 years experience" write 2 line of code in 2 weeks.
In some nearshore locations - Czech Rep/Poland/Ukraina... quality is better. But it is not huge difference in what they get and UK and most of them have only 2-3 years experience. And good developer cost money everywhere.

[SussexSeagull]

For strange reason looks like we live in parallel worlds. Every time i have to work with Cognizant it is like working with Somalia pirates. Developers with "10 years experience" write 2 line of code in 2 weeks.
In some nearshore locations - Czech Rep/Poland/Ukraina... quality is better. But it is not huge difference in what they get and UK and most of them have only 2-3 years experience. And good developer cost money everywhere.

I haven't had great experiences with offshoring but sadly while the accountants run the show cost will trump everything.

[redgiant]

I also had C# developers in South Africa. They were dead cheap, spoke fluent English, added tons of domain knowledge, and built working software quickly and competently despite all the chaos coming from here in the wonderful UK.

Maybe plain vanilla - however lovingly prepared - is no longer enough to hack it in contracting.

Then it's over.

Decent testers and developers add a lot more than testing and development but we can't even get a foot in the door anymore to make our case. I don't think it is a specific problem to contracting either as it is hitting permanent roles as well.

I don't care how niche you think your skills are or how good your soft skills are, the accountants will keep on looking for savings and one day they will look at what you do and what value you can add will lose out to short term savings.

I've worked with plenty of South Africans and they are usually great to work with and the Rand always puts them in contention when looking to outsource from the UK (+1 or +2 hours time difference too). Many Saffers insist on getting paid in USD due to the FX rate issues with the Rand but it works out very competitive still.

On the overall point on contracting being over the soft skills will be something that can't be replaced easily especially when dealing with the decision makers higher up at clientco. Relationship building and providing advice on how to do things better especially if you can be physically where the decision makers are will always be in demand despite the cost benefits of outsourcing. The market is getting smaller though in most fields for contracting IMHO so best work on those soft skills.

[SussexSeagull]

I've worked with plenty of South Africans and they are usually great to work with and the Rand always puts them in contention when looking to outsource from the UK (+1 or +2 hours time difference too). Many Saffers insist on getting paid in USD due to the FX rate issues with the Rand but it works out very competitive still.

On the overall point on contracting being over the soft skills will be something that can't be replaced easily especially when dealing with the decision makers higher up at clientco. Relationship building and providing advice on how to do things better especially if you can be physically where the decision makers are will always be in demand despite the cost benefits of outsourcing. The market is getting smaller though in most fields for contracting IMHO so best work on those soft skills.

If you are in a field that is built on soft skills (Project Management springs to mind) you might have a point but if you are in a technical role (e.g. development or testing) you can have the soft skills in abundance but it won't get you past an agent holding a box ticking exercise with hundreds of CVs or stop a company offshoring.