State of the Market

[Fraidycat]

the old way of looking at requirements writing tests then executing them to measure the software against requirements seems to have become old fashioned..

Then tell them what they want to hear. And say you did it that way in your last role.

[sadkingbilly]

As Michael Caine once said about acting, you don't retire the industry retires you. .

yep. - retired three times, so far

[SussexSeagull]

Then tell them what they want to hear. And say you did it that way in your last role.

I am out of the game now and am doing something else.

I suspect the tipping point with me is when I became the generation before the people interviewing me and once they saw the greying hair they just assumed I was past it and had nothing to contribute. The absolute core skill in testing is identifying what needs to be tested in the time allowed and executing those tests. If you can't do that (or someone else does it for you) then all the testing tools and frameworks in the world won't help. Testing is part science and part art and the latter has been forgotten about.

I don't even get angry about it anymore. The industry moved on without me, which isn't to say their aren't other factors such as outsourcing and the benefits of AI, both actual and perceived, in play as well.

[SussexSeagull]

yep. - retired three times, so far

That's more Frank Sinatra than Michael Caine!

[sadkingbilly]

That's more Frank Sinatra than Michael Caine!

ok. i'm on my fourth 'farewell tour'.
that better??

[SchumiStars]

I'm not too bothered now TBH.

The house renovation has been completed, albeit some landscaping and I am generally mortgage free. The pension pot is ok. So by in large, I could semi-retire, I have been for the last 2yrs anyway.

I do really enjoy work, however if that's not there in the foreseeable future then not sure what else I could do. Really enjoyed contracting before ir35 and wfh but now it's just meh...

I could open a coffee shop, but does not sound like fun or could do some teaching at a local college, again not the kind of challenges I enjoy TBF.

.....Who knows what the future holds, I certainly don't!

[oliverson]

Back at my desk after walking the dogs, coffee at the clubhouse outside in the sunshine and looking at blue sky and greenery outside and the c. 800m mountain right behind us, wondering whether 'the industry has retired me'. Wondering whether that chapter of my life (contracting) is truly over.

I guess it's a case of seeing what horror show this budget brings before deciding whether to sell here (Spain) or the UK.

[pjt]

Back at my desk after walking the dogs, coffee at the clubhouse outside in the sunshine and looking at blue sky and greenery outside and the c. 800m mountain right behind us, wondering whether 'the industry has retired me'. Wondering whether that chapter of my life (contracting) is truly over.

I guess it's a case of seeing what horror show this budget brings before deciding whether to sell here (Spain) or the UK.

Sounds like a not too bad problem to have lol

[AndyGarbs]

You can take a horse to water...

If you can establish that the contract had fundamentally different working practices than the employment, then you are in the best case scenario, which means that you (and the client) will still be a target for investigation (), but you will probably be left with the huge benefit of a prolonged period of stress and some lost time and money, but not a huge tax bill. Yay.

Crucially, almost all of these scenarios that involve a transition to or from employment are administered by clueless contractors and clients, so you can be pretty sure that there wasn't a fundamental change in working practices that was carefully documented and, most likely, any assessment of IR35 was itself pretty cursory and engaged with the contractual terms alone. Rather, the numpty contractor continued business as usual and the numpty supply chain was happy to continue as though nothing had changed. Good luck with that.

Seriously, do you really think that someone doing roughly the same things under two separate contractual arrangements will really win their argument that they were apples and pears? Literally the whole point of IR35 is to look through this cretinous fluff to establish a hypothetical contract based on actual working practices. Your absolute best hope is that you never get investigated. There is a good chance you won't, to be fair.

As I keep saying, Chapter 10 is far from risk free w/r to where the liabilities will eventually fall. Ultimately, if there is an employer and employee and the employer makes a mistake with the taxation of employee income, any underpaid tax will be recovered from the employee. You don't get to keep the money. In principle, the same could happen with Chapter 10. We'll have to wait and see.

Back at my desk after walking the dogs, coffee at the clubhouse outside in the sunshine and looking at blue sky and greenery outside and the c. 800m mountain right behind us, wondering whether 'the industry has retired me'. Wondering whether that chapter of my life (contracting) is truly over.

I guess it's a case of seeing what horror show this budget brings before deciding whether to sell here (Spain) or the UK.

Sell UK (even before the Budget is announced), you'll be clobbered for Stamp Duty, IHC

[Bluenose]

The phone has continued to ring through October, I am getting about one call a day on average, through October.

There is a market and it is normalising, through a very, very bleak 18 month period.

The treatment you get from the market is the same if you are in the 500 EUR pd range or the 1500 EUR pd range.

You are still doomed if you get phoned up by a millenial working at a recruitment agency in London.

Strangely, statisitically speaking I am not as doomed if contacted by an Indian based recruiter. Yes there are other problems when dealing with India based recruiters but I am finding them easier and more reliable as time passes than the London based mob. I think the London based mob try to tick boxes more, the India based mob tends to be a bit more flexible. The Indian based recruiters do seem to have Linkedin recruiter licensed, which I think also helps.