Perm->Contract - How to handle notice period

[MrMarkyMark]

FTFY

Throw all your money on black. Take it from there.

[mattfx]

OP a 60k P/A permie position where you've great life balance and are home by 6pm is absolutely not to be snorted at. Many on this forum travel hundreds of miles a week and put up with overnight stays in hotels away from their families to make not a dissimilar amount of take home by the time you've factored in a holiday or two plus a furlough at Christmas.

Honestly, i'd stick rather than twist in your position. For me getting out of perm was a bit different - I had a 10 minute drive to work, often got to knock off before 5pm, rarely rolled in before 9... But I was only on 44k - so the monetary incentives were far greater.

I do understand what you mean about wanting to be stretched and challenged, but some contract roles are a lot more dull than you think. People want tasks doing and oftentimes permies don't want to do them if they're boring and repetitive... So guess who gets given them? Don't go into this with rose tinted glasses.

[BlasterBates]

The choice is usually between boring or stressful. Boring usually means you have a "cushy" number, which you will probably miss if you end up in an interesting role where you will probably be stressed to the eyeballs.

[LondonManc]

OP a 60k P/A permie position where you've great life balance and are home by 6pm is absolutely not to be snorted at. Many on this forum travel hundreds of miles a week and put up with overnight stays in hotels away from their families to make not a dissimilar amount of take home by the time you've factored in a holiday or two plus a furlough at Christmas.

Honestly, i'd stick rather than twist in your position. For me getting out of perm was a bit different - I had a 10 minute drive to work, often got to knock off before 5pm, rarely rolled in before 9... But I was only on 44k - so the monetary incentives were far greater.

I do understand what you mean about wanting to be stretched and challenged, but some contract roles are a lot more dull than you think. People want tasks doing and oftentimes permies don't want to do them if they're boring and repetitive... So guess who gets given them? Don't go into this with rose tinted glasses.

The inside IR35 contractor if he accepts them and they're not in his project deliverables? *cough* MoO *cough* part and parcel

[mattfx]

The inside IR35 contractor if he accepts them and they're not in his project deliverables? *cough* MoO *cough* part and parcel

So if doing 20 Windows Server builds is part of your project, the client has no automation tools and there's no business justification to put them in place because the work is a one off, who do you think will have to do them? Sadly, you won't get to put that on to a permie and it is going to form part of your deliverables, if you're building a new infrastructure for someone.

There are plenty more anecdotal examples I can come up with if required

[MrMarkyMark]

So if doing 20 Windows Server builds is part of your project, the client has no automation tools and there's no business justification to put them in place because the work is a one off, who do you think will have to do them? Sadly, you won't get to put that on to a permie and it is going to form part of your deliverables, if you're building a new infrastructure for someone.

There are plenty more anecdotal examples I can come up with if required

but....

Its part of the project and should be itemized as a deliverable on your contract ideally.

LM is talking about more adhoc requests.

[LondonManc]

but....

Its part of the project and should be itemized as a deliverable on your contract ideally.

LM is talking about more adhoc requests.

Correct. It's one thing digging someone out of the doodoo as a one-off but to become the departmental go-to resource for SQL query performance tuning if you're there to design a data mart isn't anything other than becoming part and parcel. I'd have to seriously consider going back perm if I started enjoying that sort of carp again.

[Lance]

but....

Its part of the project and should be itemized as a deliverable on your contract ideally.

LM is talking about more adhoc requests.

I've never seen a contract with that level of detail.
A project name is what I insist on, then I invoice items against that project (whether that be design, build, deploy, test, document or handover)
Until I've told them how to do the project how could they possibly know every item to be delivered?

[SueEllen]

I've never seen a contract with that level of detail.
A project name is what I insist on, then I invoice items against that project (whether that be design, build, deploy, test, document or handover)
Until I've told them how to do the project how could they possibly know every item to be delivered?

There are some boring tedious tasks that can't be itemised like that but are part of your deliverables.

For example if you are working on a system that needs some testing done and you have in your deliverables that you need to ensure the system is tested to a certain standard even though you don't have to personally do the testing, then if there is no test data and the permies don't want to create the initial files because making up and copying stuff is boring then you can end up doing it.

[fiisch]

Thanks for the advice all. The company are messing me around in terms of interview time, so I've decided to withdraw my application as I see this as a bad sign, and having read the comments maybe I am not as interested in the role as I thought!

Will keep my head down into next year and look to get some extra window-dressing on my CV, then look to contract as a BA end of next year, but aim for a higher day rate - £450-500.

My rationale for this:
- Ability to benefit from wife's tax allowance (low hours due to childcare);
- Will keep child benefit rather than paying some/all of it back;
- 47 weeks working at £450 a day is £105,750. Less £12,000 pension contribution, £93,750, less costs £12000 = £81,750 * 0.7 (approx. take-home) = £4,768.75 plays £3,265. OK there are periods between contracts, but this is a relatively conservative calculation.