State of the Market

[willendure]

Conservatives allowed it to happen.

Conservatives allowed it to happen whilst telling us immigration from the EU was the real problem. Which makes me think it was a play to swap cheap labour with even cheaper labour whilst running off the more nationalistic end of their support on brexit.

I remember the days when you would regularly meet very well educated eastern europeans who were working as cleaners back home, and had come to the UK to work in serious professions which they might hold even PhDs in. I'm Scottish, so we liked the eastern europeans as a great bunch lilke us, down south they were not so taken with them. And look what you got instead.

[sadkingbilly]

Conservatives allowed it to happen whilst telling us immigration from the EU was the real problem.

that Conservative PM who's wife sort of owns an Indian Consultancy??
no conflict of interest, of course not, who could possibly think such a thing?

[dsc]

[...]
I remember the days when you would regularly meet very well educated eastern europeans who were working as cleaners back home, and had come to the UK to work in serious professions which they might hold even PhDs in.
[...]

I'm Polish and came to the UK back in 2008, most people that came with a degree (remember that higher education is free in Poland, so loads of people have degrees) in anything reasonable (like engineering) could get a job back in Poland as well, but salaries were low back then, there was less investment, less industry projects etc. Wages in engineering in the UK whilst still fairly low then (terrible now when you include the cost of living rising) were pretty good compared to what was available back in Poland and also the work culture was pretty relaxed and overall respectful, so it was very much like night and day. The exchange rate was also crazy good back then (6 to 1), so it made sense to come and work even as a dish washer for a period, live on someone's sofa and save as much as you can to then go back, buy a flat (those were cheap then) and be mortgage free.

Fast forward 20yrs and Poland has boomed like crazy, salaries went up super high, same goes for pretty much anything else, polish zloty went up, exchange rate went to tulip and so Poland is now more attractive than the UK (especially if you consider that UK had very little growth in the same period, actually even worse, it boomed earlier on, so now has tons of assets which are old and crumbling due to austerity measures). Throw in Brexit which pissed a lot of migrants off and now you have more Poles leaving the UK (including me) than coming here and they are being replaced by people who still have it better in the UK than in their own countries. To some extent this is probably a natural circle of immigration.

[willendure]

and now you have more Poles leaving the UK (including me) than coming here and they are being replaced by people who still have it better in the UK than in their own countries. To some extent this is probably a natural circle of immigration.

I think all you Poles leaving has been a brain drain. Its a completely different experience to work with Poles or Czechs compared with Indians, because the cultural, language and mental divide is much less wide. Also at that time people were coming to work IN the uk, not take work abroad so much, so it was beneficial to our economy and tax take to have those people here.

I think its even beneficial for a UK company to hire talent in Europe and have a fully remote European team compared with the level of value-for-money they might get going with Indian agencies. There is just less friction and better communication, and tonnes of smart people in Europe that are good to work with.

We have to face it though, India is doing to IT what China did to manufacturing.

[dsc]

I think all you Poles leaving has been a brain drain. Its a completely different experience to work with Poles or Czechs compared with Indians, because the cultural, language and mental divide is much less wide. Also at that time people were coming to work IN the uk, not take work abroad so much, so it was beneficial to our economy and tax take to have those people here.

I think its even beneficial for a UK company to hire talent in Europe and have a fully remote European team compared with the level of value-for-money they might get going with Indian agencies. There is just less friction and better communication, and tonnes of smart people in Europe that are good to work with.

We have to face it though, India is doing to IT what China did to manufacturing.

Indeed there's more cultural similarities and it's a shame imho that even those that settled, are often selling their houses and packing up to either return to Poland or move elsewhere (I'm actually really sad to be leaving tbh). Overall though to me the whole move away from European migrants to outside-European ones was very much orchestrated and lobbied heavily by companies as they are the ones who "benefit" (on paper perhaps, but I guess they will find out at some stage whether there's any real benefit to this).

Btw there's a big drop in IT vacancies in Poland now as well, this comes after years of pretty much unlimited demand for software devs, people who studied geography / history doing dev boot camps just to get on the IT "ladder etc. Salaries have dropped, things are being offshored constantly, the constant drive of wages reached a point where it's cheaper to outsource to nearby countries, so imho a ceiling has been hit and I wonder where this will go.

[SchumiStars]

Indeed there's more cultural similarities and it's a shame imho that even those that settled, are often selling their houses and packing up to either return to Poland or move elsewhere (I'm actually really sad to be leaving tbh). Overall though to me the whole move away from European migrants to outside-European ones was very much orchestrated and lobbied heavily by companies as they are the ones who "benefit" (on paper perhaps, but I guess they will find out at some stage whether there's any real benefit to this).

Btw there's a big drop in IT vacancies in Poland now as well, this comes after years of pretty much unlimited demand for software devs, people who studied geography / history doing dev boot camps just to get on the IT "ladder etc. Salaries have dropped, things are being offshored constantly, the constant drive of wages reached a point where it's cheaper to outsource to nearby countries, so imho a ceiling has been hit and I wonder where this will go.

Where do Poland tech companies outsource to?

What are the contractor rates like in Poland compared to the UK and do they operate in a simalar manor to IR35, i.e. Taxed to high heaven?

Why are you leaving?

[SchumiStars]

Literally ever job on LI which is looking for a dev, tester, pm are flooded with applications from India.

They all live in India from what I can see, even though they are claiming it's London, since they have been working remotely for them.

We live in the UK, yet there jobs are being offshored. Why? I would be happy to work for less, as long as I am working. However that is still not enough.

Highly skilled, well educated and cheap, is still not enough to win a tech job in the UK.

[SussexSeagull]

They can apply all they like but if they haven't got a visa to work here then it won't go anywhere.

As I have said, the current government have at least acknowledged that too many Tech visa were issued but it remains to be seen if it makes any difference.

[hungry_hog]

Joined first time contracting in sept 2023 after being permi for 18yrs (outside ir35, £650)... got increment in daily rates in between. Now client is asking everyone to go inside IR35! Any known issues before the discussion time comes? joining as employee may also on the table .. what should I factor in (tax implications etc) and what could be potential perm salary?

If you are doing the same role inside IR35 (or as a perm) you have an issue. As you have done an outside role which would now be inside, HRMC can argue it should have been inside all along, and taxed accordingly.

[SchumiStars]

If you are doing the same role inside IR35 (or as a perm) you have an issue. As you have done an outside role which would now be inside, HRMC can argue it should have been inside all along, and taxed accordingly.

You don't really believe that post do you? Too many red flags to be taken seriously.