Contracting in Norway- is it worth it?

**stek** · 23 December 2016, 17:59

Originally posted by skysies View Post

Hi guys,

I'll very much appreciate your advice, as I'm in a great dilemma right now.

A client offered me a contract in Norway, supposedly a long term role for 2 years. I don't know yet the daily rate. Currently I'm making around £70K in a perm position. Together with the bonus it comes to around £90K per year.

My family is here in the UK (London). We won't be moving initially to Norway, so I'll need to initially travel every week. I'll be keeping a small apartment/studio in Norway and additionally paying for my mortgage in the UK. None of the expenses, including the flights, will be paid by the client.

For what daily rate do you think it will make sense to consider this opportunity?

Many thanks

Gonna need to be £1000/1200 a day to make it pay, taxes are high, accom is high and beer is 12 quid a pint.....

I'm working in Denmark and we are amazed at how expensive Norway is....

**skysies** · 23 December 2016, 18:34

Originally posted by stek View Post

Gonna need to be £1000/1200 a day to make it pay, taxes are high, accom is high and beer is 12 quid a pint.....

I'm working in Denmark and we are amazed at how expensive Norway is....

Thanks! I was thinking more around £700/day, as my previous rate in the UK was £600/day. But here I had retention rate of 80% vs 60% that I'm expecting in Norway. Big difference...Housing I think is a bit cheaper in Norway compared to London. But then everything else seems sooo much more expensive over there.

£1000 per day is a great rate, but not sure if any of the companies there would offer that. Do you think that's a realistic rate to ask?

**stek** · 23 December 2016, 20:24

Originally posted by skysies View Post

Thanks! I was thinking more around £700/day, as my previous rate in the UK was £600/day. But here I had retention rate of 80% vs 60% that I'm expecting in Norway. Big difference...Housing I think is a bit cheaper in Norway compared to London. But then everything else seems sooo much more expensive over there.

£1000 per day is a great rate, but not sure if any of the companies there would offer that. Do you think that's a realistic rate to ask?

It's food and drink etc, travel all mounts up. In Copenhagen I had to take a taxi to hospital, bit of a flap, no ambulance would come, only literally 10kms there and back, 60 quid!!

There's Norwegian guys in the pub I go in, some have limiteds but most on local payroll, you have to look at retention of sub 50%, and you have to get it right. I did loads of research for here and still got things wrong that cost me.

If u really fancy it go for it, but research thoroughly and do it yourself and not rely on experts because unless ur paying thousands, they're just googling online u like or I would do.

**skysies** · 23 December 2016, 21:58

Originally posted by stek View Post

Gonna need to be £1000/1200 a day to make it pay, taxes are high, accom is high and beer is 12 quid a pint.....

I'm working in Denmark and we are amazed at how expensive Norway is....

Yeah I know, retention in Norway sucks.I'm def not going for the nice scenery. Btw, the contract will go through a consultancy and not directly with the client. In addition, there is the agency

. Do you have any idea what cut these conultancies take? I know the agent will take around 20 pct

**skysies** · 30 December 2016, 12:42

Originally posted by stek View Post

Gonna need to be £1000/1200 a day to make it pay, taxes are high, accom is high and beer is 12 quid a pint.....

I'm working in Denmark and we are amazed at how expensive Norway is....

Btw, are you on a long-term contract there? I'll not be willing to sign if they offer me anything less than 12 months.

**rocktronAMP** · 4 January 2017, 11:11

Originally posted by skysies View Post

Btw, are you on a long-term contract there? I'll not be willing to sign if they offer me anything less than 12 months.

In the other thread, Contracting in Holland, I see this is related. This is the time of the year again, when you see a lot of international contracts ads, but there no way to determine the coolness of the engagement.

For example, I just saw this advert for a Java Architect today on the job boards

Minimum 5+ years of Java experience
3+ Years as an Architect, TOGAF 9 certification is an added advantage
Experience with implementation of large systems that utilize J2EE and Spring technologies: Spring, JSP, Servlet, JMS, JNDI, JDBC, JMX etc.
Prepare Architecture documents, Technology Trend analysis/ roadmaps, Strategic thinking, be able to take on an enterprise or system viewpoint
Digital transformation e-commerce
REST Technology, Service base architecture, SOA, Service MIX
Angular JS / Front-end / Gulp.JS, Jasmine.JS, familiar with React a bonus
JIRA, Atlassian toolset
Docker cloud technology that could include AWS, Azure, Chef, Puppet
Understanding of Mobile Platform Development, Web Responsive Design etc.
Applied knowledge of user interface design – Any JavaScript framework, HTML5, CSS3

(( No contract rate supplied in the ad, 12 months work ))

What would be an ongoing rate in Norway?
For this equivalent in London, UK, IMHO it would be at least £550 per day easy, especially when the client is asking for the Earth and all it's riches. I suspect this would double in Norway, but I don't know. It just seems so hair-brained to me like a scam. It is sounds to good to be true, then ...

Is there an easier to determine the viability of these sort of contract gigs?
What about say working further ahead like Australia or New Zealand? Can you do for say a shorter amount of time like 3 months or even 6 months? (I'd definitely do a 3 month stint in Oz with the right conditions.)

**SueEllen** · 4 January 2017, 20:09

If there is no rate in a foreign role then the rate is probably tulip.

**theroyale** · 6 January 2017, 00:12

Originally posted by SueEllen View Post

If there is no rate in a foreign role then the rate is probably tulip.

Very few countries advertise rates with the ad. Britain is in a minority here..

**loden** · 6 January 2017, 18:47

Originally posted by rocktronAMP View Post

In the other thread, Contracting in Holland, I see this is related. This is the time of the year again, when you see a lot of international contracts ads, but there no way to determine the coolness of the engagement.

For example, I just saw this advert for a Java Architect today on the job boards

Minimum 5+ years of Java experience
3+ Years as an Architect, TOGAF 9 certification is an added advantage
Experience with implementation of large systems that utilize J2EE and Spring technologies: Spring, JSP, Servlet, JMS, JNDI, JDBC, JMX etc.
Prepare Architecture documents, Technology Trend analysis/ roadmaps, Strategic thinking, be able to take on an enterprise or system viewpoint
Digital transformation e-commerce
REST Technology, Service base architecture, SOA, Service MIX
Angular JS / Front-end / Gulp.JS, Jasmine.JS, familiar with React a bonus
JIRA, Atlassian toolset
Docker cloud technology that could include AWS, Azure, Chef, Puppet
Understanding of Mobile Platform Development, Web Responsive Design etc.
Applied knowledge of user interface design – Any JavaScript framework, HTML5, CSS3

(( No contract rate supplied in the ad, 12 months work ))

What would be an ongoing rate in Norway?
For this equivalent in London, UK, IMHO it would be at least £550 per day easy, especially when the client is asking for the Earth and all it's riches. I suspect this would double in Norway, but I don't know. It just seems so hair-brained to me like a scam. It is sounds to good to be true, then ...

Is there an easier to determine the viability of these sort of contract gigs?
What about say working further ahead like Australia or New Zealand? Can you do for say a shorter amount of time like 3 months or even 6 months? (I'd definitely do a 3 month stint in Oz with the right conditions.)

Well, don't expect that your UK rate will correspond to double this rate in Norway. That's unfortunately not the reality. There's a lot of crap in this forum, one guy was saying he won't go unless it's £1000 or something like that, which is more like a fantasy rate IMHO. And guess what, they can always find some Indians for 1/10 of that rate

Contracting in Norway- is it worth it?