State of the Market

[TheDude]

Indian service provider HCL have released a contract matching my skill set and no fewer than nine Indian recruitment firms contacted me quoting rates between £370 and £450 Inside IR35.

I'd consider £500 even though I suspect this would be a really tulipty gig but I suspect I would be wasting my time even interviewing.

[PerfectStorm]

Indian service provider HCL have released a contract matching my skill set and no fewer than nine Indian recruitment firms contacted me quoting rates between £370 and £450 Inside IR35.

I'd consider £500 even though I suspect this would be a really tulipty gig but I suspect I would be wasting my time even interviewing.

I suspect part of the problem isn't the Indian firms being stingy, but having themselves won the contract to supply the workforce based on a very low overall rate for the services.

Of course, everyone could be happier and better paid if the clients recruited their own people, but finding a solution isn't what's needed here as much as it's "being seen to be spending the money".

[SchumiStars]

Indian service provider HCL have released a contract matching my skill set and no fewer than nine Indian recruitment firms contacted me quoting rates between £370 and £450 Inside IR35.

I'd consider £500 even though I suspect this would be a really tulipty gig but I suspect I would be wasting my time even interviewing.

What will happen, is that you will deliver an inch perfect interview against technical questions which are not relevant and you will still not get the job.

Why?

Well they will suddenly find someone who will work for a visa or from India much cheaper. And thats the mess we are in. Unfortunately the Indian consultancies have come in, undercut everyone and then supplied cheap resources.

From what I have seen, the solution never gets delivered and will constantly need to be big fixed and maintained. And round and round we go.

The days of a company wanting quality educated, experienced resource (that's me BTW) are very much over.

[willendure]

From what I have seen, the solution never gets delivered and will constantly need to be big fixed and maintained. And round and round we go.

The days of a company wanting quality educated, experienced resource (that's me BTW) are very much over.

True - but this sounds like the TCO to the copmany will be larger in the long run, since everything will be broken all the time and take forever to get any projects done.

Its pretty much the working situation I am in now - lots of offshore resources to do the job, but they are difficult to understand, incapable of using any initiative, lazy, and will find the smallest excuse to not do the work - even to get them to write 3 lines of code I must literally spell out exactly what they should do. It would be faster if I just did it myself, and a lot more likely to be the right thing too. Bumped into an old pal the other day and was telling him that I thought it was like trying to vibe code using lazy and stupid AI!

I think with a quality team of UK engineers about 1/3 the size, the work would be faster and done better and cost less. So why the rush to go down this route? I think there is a false economy of thinking all engineers are as good as each other and racing to minimizing the cost-per-bum-on-seat.

[SchumiStars]

True - but this sounds like the TCO to the copmany will be larger in the long run, since everything will be broken all the time and take forever to get any projects done.

Its pretty much the working situation I am in now - lots of offshore resources to do the job, but they are difficult to understand, incapable of using any initiative, lazy, and will find the smallest excuse to not do the work - even to get them to write 3 lines of code I must literally spell out exactly what they should do. It would be faster if I just did it myself, and a lot more likely to be the right thing too. Bumped into an old pal the other day and was telling him that I thought it was like trying to vibe code using lazy and stupid AI!

I think with a quality team of UK engineers about 1/3 the size, the work would be faster and done better and cost less. So why the rush to go down this route? I think there is a false economy of thinking all engineers are as good as each other and racing to minimizing the cost-per-bum-on-seat.

And this is why systems become unmaintable in the future. Bugs, incompleted use cases on an ageing platform usually means, that instead of upgrading companies will be faced with new applications being scoped and sectioned.

Hopefully seeing how the previous systems were subjected to 3rd party, off-shore developments, business requirements are built using UK BAs and depending on the size either outsourced or built in-house.

I feel, with the current downturn, this is were we are. We have had 3yrs of no forward tech delivery within companies and they should be planning at least, how to migrate existing applctions to newer platforms.

,(Waiting for football to start, TDF to get going and the replay available for F1).

[uk contractor]

Indian service provider HCL have released a contract matching my skill set and no fewer than nine Indian recruitment firms contacted me quoting rates between £370 and £450 Inside IR35.

I'd consider £500 even though I suspect this would be a really tulipty gig but I suspect I would be wasting my time even interviewing.

Those 9 recruitment firms are ALL HCL satellite companies I am 100% certain of that...if you could get to the murky bottom of their accounts you will find its somehow part of the now vast HCL empire which is a big part of undercutting UK IT resource!!

They have their gruby little fingers in all the major financial services companies operating in London nowadays & are only growing ever larger as demonstrated by their Ferrari F1 team sponsorship....its only a matter of time before they swallow the rest up (even HP as an outsourcer I think are on borrowed time as HCL tend to undercut them just to steal the business!).

[oliverson]

This really is as bad as it gets. I'm seeing absolutely nothing other than the odd Indian agent dropping me a line on LinkedIn for either low paying inside roles or permanent ones.

I did have a possibility with a previous client (kind of), but meeting has been cancelled twice now. Not holding my breath on that one.

Funny how time really flies. Coming up to 6 months since I 'retired' and probably 4 months since I decided it was a bad idea and started looking at the market again.

Feel for those who've been out a long time and I think it gets harder and harder the longer you've been out. Like there's something wrong with YOU.

[quackhandle]

I had a chat with a pimp about a data architecture role using my technology and it was £400pd (and he was trying to get it outside ir35, which means it is blatantly inside), it was fully remote but f**k me, it is no wonder you read about companies being hacked / forced out business due to ransomware payments.

This wasn't a BAU DBA role this was designing something properly from the start and they offer that money? AI won't save you there.

We're all doomed.


not qh but private frazer

[TheDude]

Something may be in the pipeline. Not the greatest rate but somewhere I have recent experience with.

[Fraidycat]

part of the now vast HCL empire which is a big part of undercutting UK IT resource!!

Different industry but a relative works in an Indian academy school just outside of London (which means state funded but not council controlled), unlike council schools they can hire dirt cheap unqualified teachers inplace of qualified teachers and she said they are taking full advantage of that. Hiring loads of them.