Chasing first contract

[andyg]

Thanks to all for the constructive feedback received so far. However I find it a real shame there is such negativity thrown around by posters with thousands of posts to their name. Considering this ought to be a place for contractors to share their wealth of knowledge and experience - I can only assume they are frightened of the competition and frequent here to scare newbies away rather than offer any support or encouragement??

As I mentioned in my OP, I am a data analyst by trade, and knocking up a calculator for plugging these sorts of number into was one of my first ports of call when I started weighing this option up. Not to mention the wealth of online information & calculators available on this site and others.

Whilst I appreciate malvolio's "dose of reality" - this is no more representative than suggesting I might never get that first contract, therefore my earnings are £0, or I might land a contract that get's extended indefinitely. A good contractor friend of mine is currently knocking on 3-years into a 3 month contract.

I have done my own sums and a £350/day contract - even inside IR35 - a conservative 200 billable days and knowing what my expenses will be comes out at £3311 take-home per month. A far cry from the £2276 I currently receive as a permie. To suggest this increase in take-home is negligible or not worth pursuing is frankly ridiculous.

In fact, to break-even and match my current take-home would require billing for just 130 days - funnily enough about 6 months - coincidentally the length of that first contract I was going for.

So forgive me if I take advice along these lines with a whole vat of salt!

You'll get used to the amount of negativity on this site - I did, even after posting what I thought were useful accounts of my time in Qatar and Dubai and offers of help for those thinking of going to work there.

For every role I work at (I'm an enterprise architect and work on large-scale transformations) there are always data analyst working in the team. So keep your head up and just keep applying for roles. Try changing your CV regularly and posting it on Jobserve/Monster/etc as it seems to trigger something with the agencies. Also, accept agency/recruiter requests on linkedin as they post and like other recruiter's posts, which then appear in your feed. Good luck.

[BrilloPad]

You'll get used to the amount of negativity on this site

Or you get dragged down to that level.

[andyg]

Or you get dragged down to that level.

Not really. It takes a conscious effort to write/post something on this forum. The usual suspects seem to delight in writing absolute shi*e for the sake of posting. I do have a feeling that one day I'll meet one of these 'super posters' working on the same gig and I'll have great delight in giving them shi*e work to do, griding them down, then let's see if they survive the length of the contract or bail. After they have spouted crap about seeing the contract through to the end come rain or shine. Rant over.

[BrilloPad]

It takes a conscious effort to write/post something on this forum.

Really?

The usual suspects seem to delight in writing absolute shi*e for the sake of posting.

It is often clever intelligent nice people granted anonymity. Try attending a meet up and you will find out.

PS are you related to andyw?

[andyg]

Really?



It is often clever intelligent nice people granted anonymity. Try attending a meet up and you will find out.

PS are you related to andyw?

No relation