State of the Market

[LondonManc]

There was often a requirement for London based roles that you had to be local to London let alone just in the UK. That requirement is long gone and the London premium for roles is diminishing as they accept more remote working is going to be a major factor for applicates.

Even for London roles, Birmingham and even Manchester are commutable each day for the most determined. It sometimes took me less time to get to Canary Wharf from north Manchester on a Monday morning for a contract than one of the permies from the outskirts of Cambridge who drove in. Plus I'd had two hours of chilling out and breakfast on the train rather than stressed out crawling down the M11.

As someone else said, timezones is more key and how much you want your support services available at the same time as your end users. The US do it a lot by downshoring from the New York area down to the Carolinas - there's no reason we shouldn't be doing similar and making better use of the northern powerhouse that has failed to materialise.

[Katalyst]

I got a friend contractor for 10+ years. He was struggling to find an outside IR35 contract at a normal for him rate, £600-£650.

His solution, that kind of works, got a couple of perms jobs at the same time, also is looking to take on another inside contract

He is currently getting:

- £50K perm
- £65K perm
- about to get a £400/day inside

Total would be 50+65+(70?) = 185K/year or eq to £800/day outside IR35! plus you get the 20 days holiday

Obviously this is remote only at the moment, and in a month or two it will require onsite 1-2 days a week.

What do you think about this? Is it sustainable? Is it "legal"?

I did this for over six months. I had one permie role at 90k+ and an outside of IR35 role at 650/pd. It worked in large part because the end client for the role happened to be in the US, so I rarely had to worry about overlapping meetings. But the workload was so light in both roles, that it was ridiculously easy. I lived off the permie role and just banked the contract money. I think this is a very viable solution - one permie and one contract or two contracts.

The way I see it, I've been doing this work for over 20 years and I can crank out solid code much faster than a junior or a midrange dev, but the day rate market resistance maxes out at 700/pd if you're really hot stuff. But being twice as good won't get you 1400/pd, not because you're not worth it, but because nobody wants to see a single individual earn that kind of money. So how can someone capitalize on their speed and efficiency? Create a product - that's like playing the lottery, start your own agency meh .. I say this is it. Take two contracts at 500/pd, which is easy enough and earn 1000/pd or more ..

[BlasterBates]

It really depends on your skillset. If you have a niche, in demand, skillset, then nothing will change (for as long as your skillset is niche and in demand) because you've always worked remotely for clients from across the world (else you moved around as a permie). If you don't, then the "globalisation" of your market can obviously have pretty profound impacts, even if only from the churn of companies realising that outsourcing has downsides too (i.e., switching back and forth between outsourced and local teams). There is no single market, no single impact from outsourcing. "Globalisation" is fantastic for high-end contractors.

What do you mean by niche? What I see is a huge demand for C++/Java developers and Ops, I wouldn't consider that niche. If you go on the market now you'll be snapped up. I would say there is a strong market for generalists also for remote positions. In the past I would probably agree to work remotely you probably needed a specialist nice skill, that has no changed and was happening before the pandemic. In my previous company there were ever fewer people in the office because the company simply allowed people to work remotely whenever they wanted.

[jamesbrown]

What do you mean by niche? What I see is a huge demand for C++/Java developers and Ops, I wouldn't consider that niche. If you go on the market now you'll be snapped up. I would say there is a strong market for generalists also for remote positions. In the past I would probably agree to work remotely you probably needed a specialist nice skill, that has no changed and was happening before the pandemic. In my previous company there were ever fewer people in the office because the company simply allowed people to work remotely whenever they wanted.

I mean something that isn't (increasingly) generalist, like programming. Now is not the best time to judge the medium- to long-term prospects for generalists in a remote working context because we've had a historic suppression of activity followed by a historic spike in activity (now), coupled with mandated (or strongly encouraged) remote working. Forecasting in the middle of a pandemic is, er, ambitious.

The idea that remote working will improve the pay prospects of generalists in countries with high labour costs is contrary to all the evidence from the UK and elsewhere in recent years (say, post-2000). It may improve their opportunities in an arithmetic way, but that is also true for their competition in cheaper labour markets and the idea that expensive labour markets retain the "best" generalists is also fanciful nowadays.

In rich countries, globalisation (of labour markets) has always disproportionately benefited the very highly skilled and disadvantaged the less skilled. Programmers will only benefit, overall, if this leads to increased demand for programmers, overall, but that will likely not be reflected in pay because there are plenty of cheap labour markets that can fill the gap. What has happened to pay for C++/Java programmers since, say, 2000 in the UK? Falling and then static at best, I would imagine.

It is harder (but not impossible) to expand elite skillsets in cheap labour markets because elite skillsets require elite educational institutions and elite working environments, which require massive investment and time. Of course, even the elite skills will be replicated eventually, but only when the cheap labour markets become expensive.

[founder]

Galloping towards a likely extension now (this'll be my third - outside of IR35). Would quite like to quit and go on a decent holiday, but seeing as we can't go anywhere, I may just have to take the work.

I'm not jealous...

[founder]

What is good take-home pay for an IR35 role today?

5K? 7K?

[Katalyst]

What do you mean by niche? What I see is a huge demand for C++/Java developers and Ops, I wouldn't consider that niche. If you go on the market now you'll be snapped up. I would say there is a strong market for generalists also for remote positions. In the past I would probably agree to work remotely you probably needed a specialist nice skill, that has no changed and was happening before the pandemic. In my previous company there were ever fewer people in the office because the company simply allowed people to work remotely whenever they wanted.

If you were an expert in Haskell or InfluxDb or something, your market is going to be tiny by comparison to Java, but you'll be one of the few to know it. It hardly matters if there are 10 companies in London that use it as opposed to 10,000 - you only need one and the pay is likely to be much better.

[Fraidycat]

What is good take-home pay for an IR35 role today?

5K? 7K?

Do you mean inside IR35.

Perms can take home 4 to 5K a month basic + bonus and benefits

So I think you would need to take home 7K to make contracting worthwhile although i personally would want at least 8K . That equates to 800 a day inside IR35 if you take average number of days off.

[founder]

yes inside ir35

Do you mean inside IR35.

Perms can take home 4 to 5K a month basic + bonus and benefits

So I think you would need to take home 7K to make contracting worthwhile although i personally would want at least 8K . That equates to 800 a day inside IR35 if you take average number of days off.

are you including holiday pay with the umbrella?

[Fraidycat]

yes inside ir35
are you including holiday pay with the umbrella?

Yes, if you are on an inside rate of £800 a day and you take 30 days a year holiday and/or sick, after taxes and umbrella fees your take home is slightly over £8000 a month.

Ofcourse you can choose to take less days off and so earn more, but I was comparing it to what perm people take off.