State of the Market

[edison]

I use it more for short term relative numbers, month on month change is an indicator of if things are improving or going backwards. Sadly its the latter at the moment.

Another indicator i use: One of my old agents has all their roles listed on their website site. When things are good they have 20+ roles listed, they are currently down to six roles. Which is similar to what they had at the Covid lows in 2020.

I use the same indicator with an agency that has placed me three times. They normally have around 200 contract and perm jobs on their site. It's around a third lower in total now. Proportionately they have more perm/FTC roles now, contract roles are half the normal number.

[SchumiStars]

It's been 2yrs. I have never, ever seen it like this bad before for so long. I am begining to believe, that the market has permentantly changed now.

It's quite a possibility. There is nothing to suggest that IT will permentantly grow and demand will always be fluctuate.

In the 90s, my dad used to run video shops which were run out with even blockbuster coming and going. Then it was computer shops. So I am aware nothing lasts forever and perhaps contracting including software development has run it's course.

Perhaps it might be better to find an alternative income stream, I was hoping to retire in a couple of years anyway.

[Sub]

To be fair it seems like downturn is somehow more impacting programmers this time, especially ones without exposure to adjoining areas, like devops or systems integration.

Recently been advising client on the new integrator hire and while it seemed that some coding experience will be helpful, that was not enough and even had to stress to not to hire programmer who writes code day in day out.

On the other hand friend of mine started transitioning into devops few years back, from 3rd/4th line support. Recently (aug-sep), he was made redundant and whilst still on notice found new job in a week, haven't spent a day without one. He is not a contractor - but well in his 60s.

So I guess while overall downturn in IT hiring is undeniable, for some it much worse than for others.

[Fraidycat]

It's been 2yrs. I have never, ever seen it like this bad before for so long. I am begining to believe, that the market has permentantly changed now.
It's quite a possibility. There is nothing to suggest that IT will permentantly grow and demand will always be fluctuate.

The flood gates will re open at some point.

The £500 a day contract will return in huge numbers like before because £500 a day is cheaper than ever, its worth just what £350 was worth in 2012.

Not a lot of money these days, and not worth jumping to contracting for if anyone has a good perm package. But for contractors looking to retire within in the next 10 years its still not bad.

[CodeCobbler]

It's been 2yrs. I have never, ever seen it like this bad before for so long. I am begining to believe, that the market has permentantly changed now.

It's quite a possibility. There is nothing to suggest that IT will permentantly grow and demand will always be fluctuate.

In the 90s, my dad used to run video shops which were run out with even blockbuster coming and going. Then it was computer shops. So I am aware nothing lasts forever and perhaps contracting including software development has run it's course.

Perhaps it might be better to find an alternative income stream, I was hoping to retire in a couple of years anyway.

I also feel this way. I think the comparison between blockbuster and IT is an apt one. Who are we to claim we know that tech trends "go in cycles", nay, we don't have any idea. Its a market thats existed for so few years we have no way of knowing. I think its over. Maybe just maybe with the US elections there is some new found confidence in tech, but also so is cost cutting. Who can say really?

Thats good you only have to see out a couple more years. But I am at least another 10 years off retirement so I can't think about that just yet.

[CodeCobbler]

The flood gates will re open at some point.

The £500 a day contract will return in huge numbers like before because £500 a day is cheaper than ever, its worth just what £350 was worth in 2012.

Not a lot of money these days, and not worth jumping to contracting for if anyone has a good perm package. But for contractors looking to retire within in the next 10 years its still not bad.

I do hope you are right. But I don't really see the rationale where thats coming from except "it goes in cycles".

[Fraidycat]

I do hope you are right. But I don't really see the rationale where thats coming from except "it goes in cycles".

When the recovery will happen is now uncertain, i was expecting April next year but the budget has thrown a spanner into the expected recovery.


Todays news:

UK business confidence at lowest level since pandemic after tax-raising budget, the Institute of Directors says hit to private sector will undermine growth and public finances.

The Institute of Directors’ economic confidence index, which measures business leader optimism in prospects for the UK economy, fell to -65 in November from -52 in October, the fourth monthly fall in a row.

That is the lowest reading since the record low of -69 in April 2020, and the second worst since the index began in July 2016.


https://www.theguardian.com/business...raising-budget

[SussexSeagull]

I can definitively say that I am unsure. I still suspect that the main problems are business not wanting to invest in new projects and outsourcing. Holding off for AI to make everything outdated in the near future feels a bit premature at the moment.

I work in testing and it has taken until now for a lot of organisations to embrace automated testing tools. Instinctively it feels a bit early to say the same people are piling into dev ops or fully embracing AI. Business tends to be small c conservative about such things.

Although I might be wrong.

[SchumiStars]

Software development as a entirety is much easier than it was before. We live in a world of shiny, fast, brand new.

Were before it was old, cumbersome systems that noone knew anything about and developers were required to make changes to it. Now it's a case of everything in the last period to have been brought up to date and those old systems are more reliable, less bugs and more maintanable.

There is no requirement for £500pd software developers, when Tata can give you an entire Dev team for the same cost.

It's horrible to think about but in essence there does not seem to be any recovery in the foreseeable future. We will be typing the same things Dec 2025, hoping, praying for a silver bullet.

[SussexSeagull]

Software development as a entirety is much easier than it was before. We live in a world of shiny, fast, brand new.

Were before it was old, cumbersome systems that noone knew anything about and developers were required to make changes to it. Now it's a case of everything in the last period to have been brought up to date and those old systems are more reliable, less bugs and more maintanable.

There is no requirement for £500pd software developers, when Tata can give you an entire Dev team for the same cost.

It's horrible to think about but in essence there does not seem to be any recovery in the foreseeable future. We will be typing the same things Dec 2025, hoping, praying for a silver bullet.

For all the shiny new toys and methodologies that have appeared over the last 30 years, I don’t think software development has actually got any quicker because end users now have higher expectations and still have a tendency to change their mind.

Not really a silver bullet but I am not convinced there is a lot of software development projects happening full stop, either in house or off shore. If that ever changes, and one would hope pent up demand must become a factor at some point, we shall see how they are done.

Although to address your point, I (and I suspect others) won’t be asking the same question in December 2025 because I would have to be off doing something else then as I need to earn some money.

UK Plc losing the ability to produce its own software is nothing short of a national scandal and is placing us at the mercy of geopolitical trends. And no, I don’t think I am exaggerating.