State of the Market

[quackhandle]

Been on the bench 3 weeks (2 of which were holidays). I have had plenty of calls from agents, averaging two a day, "great CV", "I'll put your CV across to my client", "get back tomorrow", "Would you be interested in "... then all goes quiet.

Seems like there are a few roles out there but the quality of candidates is highly suspect.

FTFY.

qh

[oliverson]

After 18 months of hammering it, the gravy train is coming to an end. Decided I need to take a couple of months off at least but it's difficult when the market is so buoyant with big rates to be had. But I am going to take this time off and cross my fingers there are similar (or better) opportunities at the end of summer.

[Eirikur]

Market was great for me until Jan or so, great rates and loads of contracts that would suit me. Now my contract finished a couple of weeks and it suddenly came to a halt. Have a few interviews but had to lower my rate by 20%

[crc100]

PM market slow.

Anyone else finding the PM market slow? I finished my last contract at the beginning of Feb and have been searching relentlessly since. ( been contracting just under 3 years in total). I actually had an interview and was offered a contract in mid March but it fell through . I'm finding a lot of the roles on job serve etc very specific, either in Finance/Insurance or GDPR, if you don't have any experience in those areas then you don't get a look in. I'm now considering perm and have a few interviews lined up but I'd prefer to stay contracting. There seems to be more PM contractors looking for work than there are jobs.

[PerfectStorm]

Anyone else finding the PM market slow? I finished my last contract at the beginning of Feb and have been searching relentlessly since. ( been contracting just under 3 years in total). I actually had an interview and was offered a contract in mid March but it fell through . I'm finding a lot of the roles on job serve etc very specific, either in Finance/Insurance or GDPR, if you don't have any experience in those areas then you don't get a look in. I'm now considering perm and have a few interviews lined up but I'd prefer to stay contracting. There seems to be more PM contractors looking for work than there are jobs.

If someone offers you a great opportunity and you don't know how to do it, accept it and work out how to do it later

- Richard Branson


There's not a lot these days that can't be googled (or added to your prior experience)

[cojak]

That’s because there’s been a glut on the market over the last 2 to 3 years and now supply has overtaken demand.

Why don’t you train in, and get certified in GDPR?

There’s soon going to be a scamble for people who know what GDPR stands for, let alone understands it. And because it’s new you won’t have the problem regarding lack of experience.

[washed up contractor]

People just dont listen do they? For some time prior to my retirement, I was saying the market was extremely competitive, there was a shortage of jobs and many agents were just on fishing trips because they had so few placements to make.

Numerous agents also told me if you were in contract, try and secure a contract extension where you are if at all possible. Sorry to sound like a prophet of doom but it is going to get a lot worse.

Only the other day, the Dail Wail ran a story to help keep a young potential chess prodigy in the country. His parents were Tata IT workers here in the UK on working visas. They were using this kid's chess skills as a basis to get their stay made permanent. Work it out, your jobs have and continue to be given to cheap visa workers while many of you sit on the bench.

If you cannot get new contracting roles, consider going permie but beware, clients never mind agencies may be reluctant to consider you.

As ever, good luck.

[SussexSeagull]

People just dont listen do they? For some time prior to my retirement, I was saying the market was extremely competitive, there was a shortage of jobs and many agents were just on fishing trips because they had so few placements to make.

Numerous agents also told me if you were in contract, try and secure a contract extension where you are if at all possible. Sorry to sound like a prophet of doom but it is going to get a lot worse.

Only the other day, the Dail Wail ran a story to help keep a young potential chess prodigy in the country. His parents were Tata IT workers here in the UK on working visas. They were using this kid's chess skills as a basis to get their stay made permanent. Work it out, your jobs have and continue to be given to cheap visa workers while many of you sit on the bench.

If you cannot get new contracting roles, consider going permie but beware, clients never mind agencies may be reluctant to consider you.

As ever, good luck.

I think people are perfectly aware of what has gone on.

For what it’s worth I think the market is beginning to stabilise now. You can’t now get into the country to be a contractor (short of ‘bending’ the rules) and I am not sure net outsourcing is ho not to change much.

We might be experiencing the new normal.

[SillyPerson]

Skillset relevance

At the risk of stating the obvious (and appearing smug) there are areas in which it is very challenging to recruit decent contractors:

Information Security Managers - generalists but qualified and up to date
SOC analysts
SIEM engineers
GDPR folks with actual experience
Incident handlers
Security architects
Appsec gurus

I've had two emails today asking if I know any analysts and if I did I'd recruit 'em myself.

Perhaps more usefully...anyone with (for example) a Cisco background would qualify on the entitlement to do CISSP under networking and this can be self-studied inexpensively. Cisco (or any networking skills) plus CISSP *might* start to get the phone ringing. There are many permutations but with the 'this is my skill and the new qualification demonstrates the aptitude and my self-study demonstrates the attitude will get attention (because of the dearth of people). Not for £500 a day - closer to £350 roughly but this is based on the practice adopted and observed at a UK defence contractor who went to market with a view to getting people in to learn (up to a point) on the job and for the best ones this included contractors.

And ultimately I agree 100% with PerfectStorm - fake it till you make it may not be ethical but it's a strategy that's paid of (for others of course :-) )

[crc100]

If someone offers you a great opportunity and you don't know how to do it, accept it and work out how to do it later

- Richard Branson


There's not a lot these days that can't be googled (or added to your prior experience)

Yeah agreed. As a PM tho you can manage any project it's just getting past the recruiter to speak to the hiring managers. However following numerous discussions with recruiters and looking at job posts, you will not be considered/shortlisted unless you have the specific experience of delivering X project, such as GDPR. I applied for a job posted on job serve the other day for an Infrastructure PM in South Yorkshire which fit exactly what I had previously done, I spoke to the recruiter directly who told me she had received 100 CV's within an hour of the job being posted. Market is definitely tough.