State of the Market

[avonleigh]

Saw a job but it says that you must have active SC Clearance as a minimum, with DV-Clearance a preference.

DV I don't know a huge about but I think that is not easy or quick and is usually for senior civil servant types...anyone know?

I don't have current SC clearance and I've never had DV clearance.

Have had SC clearance for years. Quite straight forward, takes 3-4 months. DV is a whole different ball game. Can take 12 months to get. 20-30 pages to fill out and they go deep into your finances and even look into your friends and family. Quite often they will interview them too. It's incrediblty intrusive and puts a lot of people off. I would love to have DV but never had the opportunity.

[malvolio]

Saw a job but it says that you must have active SC Clearance as a minimum, with DV-Clearance a preference.

DV I don't know a huge about but I think that is not easy or quick and is usually for senior civil servant types...anyone know?

I don't have current SC clearance and I've never had DV clearance.

Perhaps have a read of this thread. It's old, long and tedious, but the first couple of pages will answer most questions.

[Cookielove]

Have had SC clearance for years. Quite straight forward, takes 3-4 months. DV is a whole different ball game. Can take 12 months to get. 20-30 pages to fill out and they go deep into your finances and even look into your friends and family. Quite often they will interview them too. It's incrediblty intrusive and puts a lot of people off. I would love to have DV but never had the opportunity.

Wow that is intrusive...

[malvolio]

Wow that is intrusive...

Not at all. Just think what it is aiming top protect.

It costs the sponsor a few thousands as well, so it is not done lightly.

And, of course, there are levels above DV, and different vetting requirements across different organisations even for DV.

It is not as simple as many people think.

[oliverson]

I've said it a few times on here before but the .Net Developer Contract market is gone, and from what it seems other developer tech stacks aren't faring much better.

Currently on a FTC, which ends in 10 months and I've realistically got 7 years until I can even think about retiring. So I'm looking at using the next 10 months to try and pick a niche that will see me out.

I'm not sure that's going to work either.

I have a 'deep' background in .NET, going back to when it was in beta and more recently lots of 'in demand' skills ranging from Azure to AWS, Kubernetes to Iac (Terraform). Front end (Angular/React), backend (.NET, Node).

What good are these skills doing me in today's market? Absolutely **** all. I can barely get a sniff of anything. Any ads I apply to from the likes of JobServe or LinkedIn result in absolutely nothing. A black hole into which I fire my CV. Any follow ups to the agent that I track down on LinkedIn. Nothing. My network? Next to nothing. It is as if there's a force field around the contract market that is hell bent on preventing me getting back in.

I'm sure I'm not alone in this, so, I don't think it's your skills that are the issue.

Just seen Rachael from accounts on the TV peddling more bad news to come, resulting in the pound dropping in value. That's going to be good for business eh?

Looks like the lifeline somebody threw me as I was drowning in my nightmare the other night has been yanked away!

[Fraidycat]

I heard this strange notion that during the good times the big tech firms over hire and 'hoard' employees

These days they are firing employees but hoarding Nvidia GPUs instead, Microsoft CEO recently said he has more GPUs but not the energy supply power to them all.

Same thing is being said about Amazon they are firing employees and using the savings to buy GPUs to power their AI servers

[fatJock]

Just signed a three month extension in a job I'm hating ... not because of the work but because I get itchy feet and I've already been there two years.

Always been inside IR35 the whole contract, not fussed about that either way but the market seems dire enough for me to stay with the devil I know.

Infra PM - currently doing a very belated Win 11 upgrade and retiring a Citrix environment.

[rocktronAMP]

Sky in Osterley are always after Scala developers. I always decline approaches because the commute is not feasible from Essex or I suspect a lot of other places.

Some genius has decided to advertise the same Scala role but each time located in one of about 40 different towns in the UK.

Not this is one then https://www.jobserve.com/gb/en/searc...3E4B774A8AA61/
Except this IAM Developer could possibly be easier - Brick Lane, eminently walkable from Liverpool Street station or hop off at Aldgate East.
I saw the same IAM role advertised in Essex, Cheam, Surrey and Middlesex - obviously Sky could not have predicted the pandemic in 2010, when they moved operations from central London to Osterley no-person's land. It's a dog leg to commute if you live in south London, Crystal Palace, etc. After 2021, why didn't they just buy cheap real office estate in the Zone 1? Google had an office in Victoria before they moved to King's Cross border. Who bought that? Commercial estate is at a low price point now, and News International have money, but in the the future cost of rebuying back into the central London will increase whenever the economy booms (sigh).

[malvolio]

Not this is one then https://www.jobserve.com/gb/en/searc...3E4B774A8AA61/
Except this IAM Developer could possibly be easier - Brick Lane, eminently walkable from Liverpool Street station or hop off at Aldgate East.
I saw the same IAM role advertised in Essex, Cheam, Surrey and Middlesex - obviously Sky could not have predicted the pandemic in 2010, when they moved operations from central London to Osterley no-person's land. It's a dog leg to commute if you live in south London, Crystal Palace, etc. After 2021, why didn't they just buy cheap real office estate in the Zone 1? Google had an office in Victoria before they moved to King's Cross border. Who bought that? Commercial estate is at a low price point now, and News International have money, but in the the future cost of rebuying back into the central London will increase whenever the economy booms (sigh).

Dear old Sky. did a basket case job for them a while ago, 6 months of wasted time and effort as far as I was concerned. Should have been suspicious when I had to fly up to Scotland for a 20 minute interview, should have walked away when the lead consultant turned out to be someone with no people skills (for a transformation project...) and the view that only his opinion was correct (which it usually wasn't, not even close). Nightmare drive to get there, and couldn't park when you did; I stayed in a crap but friendly hotel just up the road and ignored demands that I be there for 9:00 Monday and 5:30 Friday.

Deffo a case of keep invoicing and ignore the nonsense!

[rocktronAMP]

What good are these skills doing me in today's market? Absolutely **** all. I can barely get a sniff of anything. Any ads I apply to from the likes of JobServe or LinkedIn result in absolutely nothing. A black hole into which I fire my CV. Any follow ups to the agent that I track down on LinkedIn. Nothing. My network? Next to nothing. It is as if there's a force field around the contract market that is hell bent on preventing me getting back in.

I'm sure I'm not alone in this, so, I don't think it's your skills that are the issue.

Well I have very recent active SC clearance. I have had 3 genuine interviews since mid-September. I am hopeful the last one of these will get me back in. I agree with you, the State of the Job Market (contract and permanent) has been terrible in September, October and November 2025. I had several speculative enquiries approaches on LinkedIn, but you have to really be bloody careful with those fake profiles. These are those profiles with lifted photos from celebrities, stock model agencies and exhibit dodgy English language and come from completely different continents like Canada and Adu Dhabi. Usually, they have just under 10 recent connections not the 500+ and they have high voluted job roles like "Vice president of HR - building superior IT careers - Principal Talent Search".

As for a force field around the job market, it says IMHO that true work does not exist, or blocked on the state of pending budgets, hiring decisions, uncertain statements of work and for my particular circumstance inflexible decisions around central government. I tried applying for banking roles (tumbleweed), full stack engineer with frontend React (tumbleweed), lead engineer (tumbleweed), principal lead (deafening silence). Yet I keep seeing the same roles on LinkedIn being advertised, especially by certain recruitment agents and agencies. You will see an advertised LinkedIn job with 100 applicants that is a repost of the job from 7 days ago. What? Why arre they not finding the folk?

My network - some kindly people have reached out and helped me by sharing and the hated thing for me "commenting for better reach" CFBR (I don't think that specific LinkedIn algorithm works anymore or LinkedIn has dampened it down to stop the bots and the job fakers). One thing, I'd recommend is thanking people with gratitude, going the extra mile, especially when they stop and engage with you. I am a terrible networker when I have a job / contract, I tend to forget the job searching folk, but the next time I am in a work situation, I will engage people (and not promise to) "outside of my current gig". In my spare time, I will network with connected people and ask "how everyone is doing?" and "Offer to help", because this is complete FUBAR time for everyone involved.

BTW: Well for anyone who can stand it. If you are a central Londoner, there are loads of permie roles with 5 days onsite with JPMC *Canary Wharf. I even thought about it as a very last resort, but I live 60 miles aways.