State of the Market

[avonleigh]

Nothing wrong I think. I've been without for over a year. Theres still the little trolls on here who will say its because you don't have a LinkedIn or whatever. But its not about your CV. The reality is its the market that decides these matters for you. Tech as we knew it is Dead. Now its just about choosing what do in the future because dev isn't going to bounce back.

I would think SC would be the ticket. Thats the avenue I would pursue anyway.

There are no SC roles either. I have had SC for years and always got called about SC roles. Always thought it was a bit of a safety net.

[Smartie]

Ah statistics.
While the market is pretty terrible, the number of roles with 'developer' in the job title might not correlate exactly to the number of developer type roles.

For instance, it seems that 'Software Engineer' roles have become a lot more popular recently (below) - 50% of the number of 'Developer' roles.

The job used to be 'Programmer' but not many advertised roles for that these days - worth expanding your searches perhaps as trends in job titles do change.

Yes that is what it shows.

It is worrying.

For every 100K IT job opening pre down turn, 25K might have been developer jobs (1 quarter)

Now if there are only 30K total IT jobs because of the downturn, but only 5K of these are developer jobs (1 sixth)

Combing the numbers, means Developer job openings would have fallen by around 80%.

[sadkingbilly]

ah, squiggly meaningless lines.
where's Scooty when we need him?

[dsc]

There are no SC roles either. I have had SC for years and always got called about SC roles. Always thought it was a bit of a safety net.

There's some, not specifically in IT, more in control / automation (but not automating tasks, we are talking actual devices etc.), some in embedded devices. Rather niche areas, but still.

[dsc]

I definitely don't agreee with the "tech is dead" hypothesis - but that graph certainly isn't heading in a good direction.

BTW - what does this chart actually show? % of jobs that are developer jobs out of the total IT jobs advertised?

Job ads seem to be meaningless anyways it seems as a lot of them never materialise into much. But if there's a big decline in job ads and most of those are fake / don't lead to anywhere, then imagine how bad the market really is

[SussexSeagull]

I think Jeff Booth ... author of 'The Price Of Tomorrow' is correct. The future is going to be so different from the past. We just need to accept that many of us spend large parts of our lives unemployed and lesuire comes to the fore.

It's a wonderful thought but there will still be a lot of manual jobs that can't be automated for a very long time and I don't imagine the DWP and wider society will be too happy letting us all work three months a year while others are still in full time jobs.

[CodeCobbler]

I definitely don't agreee with the "tech is dead" hypothesis - but that graph certainly isn't heading in a good direction.

Why wouldn't tech be headed the same way as...IDK automotive production, etc.
We could already be in the future and you don't realize it. I mean I wish I was wrong but I can't see it bouncing back, if anything its found its value point.

My predictions are, support, maintenance, niche. If you are not already in those spaces, beware, look elsewhere.

[ensignia]

I've never had more work with 3 full time clients, just been extended with 2 clients (one til Feb '26, and the other til Aug '25), both accepted rate increases and all are OIR35. 23/24 has been the most profitable year for my Ltd but it looks like 24/25 could be even better.

I'm going to make hay while the sun shines, because who knows what's around the corner, and it may very well be that I'll be in the same boat as many others.

[CodeCobbler]

There are no SC roles either. I have had SC for years and always got called about SC roles. Always thought it was a bit of a safety net.

I dined out a hell of a lot on my SC. But even they started giving those away like candy a while back. Lets just saying speaking English is not a perquisite to attaining one. I assume DV is the new SC. That is, if you can get a company to sponsor DV.

[SussexSeagull]

Why wouldn't tech be headed the same way as...IDK automotive production, etc.
We could already be in the future and you don't realize it. I mean I wish I was wrong but I can't see it bouncing back, if anything its found its value point.

My predictions are, support, maintenance, niche. If you are not already in those spaces, beware, look elsewhere.

There always used to be quite a good living to be had if you were experienced in legacy platforms that they didn't want to train permanent staff on as they had a limited shelf life.

I suspect we are in the middle of a perfect storm at the moment caused by a combination of interest rstes, business nervousness, IR35, outsourcing and, possibly, clients sitting on their hands thinking AI is about to change everything in the short to medium term.

The only slight upside I can offer is getting a contractor in avoids the rise in employer NI contributions.

Regardless a lot of people who were previously paying a lot of tax are heading towards relatively safe permanent jobs or claiming benefits.