Are high paying contract jobs generally less interesting?

[ujjain]

It seems the best paying customers are Finance, Fintech and Government.

There are some roles out there with day rates of £650-£700, but the technologies are not always the most interesting.

I'm in doubts whether to focus more on having an interesting role versus a high day rate.

Is it so that higher paid roles are often more boring jobs or not?

[LondonManc]

It seems the best paying customers are Finance, Fintech and Government.

There are some roles out there with day rates of £650-£700, but the technologies are not always the most interesting.

I'm in doubts whether to focus more on having an interesting role versus a high day rate.

Is it so that higher paid roles are often more boring jobs or not?

No, it's generally hoped that higher-paid gigs are reward for better-experienced contractors. One does not simply walk into one of those gigs.

[NotAllThere]

Are high paying contract jobs generally less interesting?

No. In my experience, quite the opposite.

[jamesbrown]

Nope. Specialise to get the highest rates. I can't speak for IT specifically - there may be an increased risk of bench time and constant reskilling if you specialise too much - but, in general, the more interesting and better paid contracts need specialist skills. Supply and demand.

[stek]

Nope. Specialise to get the highest rates. I can't speak for IT specifically - there may be an increased risk of bench time and constant reskilling if you specialise too much - but, in general, the more interesting and better paid contracts need specialist skills. Supply and demand.

I think on the techy side like me the old days of sitting in your single-skill box have gone. I was trado-Unix (AIX, Solaris, HP-UX) for years and years, no problem getting roles and now I have to do RHEL ESX etc, as well as SAN, firewalls and TSM - environments as a whole....

Makes it more interesting but you then get percieved as a master of none......

[northernladuk]

No. In my experience, quite the opposite.

My first instinct would be to say you can't generalise like the OP said. There are too many factors involved attempt to come to such a simplistic conclusion.

Oddly enough my experience seems to be the same as NAT's. If I had to list my gigs in order from lowest to highest rate the more interesting/hectic/fun gigs were down in the lower end. Thinking back they were all roll your sleeves up and get stuck in gigs. I don't think the numbers of gigs we are talking here is enough to prove it's a fact though.

[LondonManc]

My first instinct would be to say you can't generalise like the OP said. There are too many factors involved attempt to come to such a simplistic conclusion.

Oddly enough my experience seems to be the same as NAT's. If I had to list my gigs in order from lowest to highest rate the more interesting/hectic/fun gigs were down in the lower end. Thinking back they were all roll your sleeves up and get stuck in gigs. I don't think the numbers of gigs we are talking here is enough to prove it's a fact though.

I think that could also, in my experience, correlate to the size of the organisation. A smaller client would want their pound of flesh from you more and would be more likely to have more skills shortages do to the lack of people available.

[Bee]

If means more responsibility and a challenge are more interesting for me.
What is boring for you could not be boring for the others, this can happen if you are doing the same thing for ages.

[jamesbrown]

I think on the techy side like me the old days of sitting in your single-skill box have gone. I was trado-Unix (AIX, Solaris, HP-UX) for years and years, no problem getting roles and now I have to do RHEL ESX etc, as well as SAN, firewalls and TSM - environments as a whole....

Makes it more interesting but you then get percieved as a master of none......

Yes, makes sense. I guess a particular combination of skills can also make you a specialist, but it really comes down to supply and demand. If you can position yourself in areas where supply/demand is sufficiently out of whack, you're bananad, but that requires pretty good foresight. In my experience, areas that require many years of formal education/training (vs. allow for learning on-the-job) reduce the supply quite a bit, but I'm not sure how much these generalities are worth across different industries.

[GB9]

From experience, the higher paid jobs involve longer hours and more grief.

On one project i did I easily had the highest day rate. On an hourly rate it wasn't much different to others.