Anyone Worried?

[elsergiovolador]

Over the years I have worked with many 'contractors', some who acted sensibly and built up siezable warchests and others who simply squandered their money away.

I would say a large majority fall into the latter category and live hand to mouth even with a substantial monthly take home.

This category will need to worry

Probably today market rates are not so much if you try to live normal "middle class" life. If someone is single (and rents a partner from time to time instead of dating), rents a room in a flatshare or a bed in a dorm hostel in some rough area, eats toast and beans, takes caffeine pills instead of Starbucks, then yes there is a chance of building sizeable warchest.

[6128k]

Over the years I have worked with many 'contractors', some who acted sensibly and built up siezable warchests and others who simply squandered their money away.

I would say a large majority fall into the latter category and live hand to mouth even with a substantial monthly take home.

This category will need to worry

[dogzilla]

You can tell when a contractor is spending too much money and doesn't have enough of a buffer because they start getting stressed near renewal time and start flapping when they don't have a renewal 30 days out.

[WTFH]

Ive been on these boards for over 15 years (despite what you may think). Ive seen a change in the contractor 'ethos' over the last 4 or 5 years. Yes, we were all green at one time or another but there's clearly been an influx of people who do not really grasp what a contractor is.

Contracting is has become more niche and that is speeding up every year. But many newer contractors see contracting as another form of permiedom. Even a number of established contractors have slipped into becoming part and parcel of the client if they are truely honest with themselves.

I agree that a new contractor who has maybe only been in the game for a year or so might not understand the idea of building up a warchest, but several of the posts on here are from people who claim to be contractors and claim to have been doing it for years. Many have been members of this forum for a long time.

Take a look at some of the posts from April - contractors suddenly out of work and panicking immediately about how would they pay their bills.

Contracting has always been niche for me, I've known who my "competitors" were and there's always been a case of "if I'm not available, try one of these guys". We keep in touch infrequently, but have a reasonable idea as to who is where, doing what.

[ContractorHardman]

Ive been on these boards for over 15 years (despite what you may think). Ive seen a change in the contractor 'ethos' over the last 4 or 5 years. Yes, we were all green at one time or another but there's clearly been an influx of people who do not really grasp what a contractor is.

Contracting is has become more niche and that is speeding up every year. But many newer contractors see contracting as another form of permiedom. Even a number of established contractors have slipped into becoming part and parcel of the client if they are truely honest with themselves.

Totally this and you have to explain to your other people about contracting.

"You're raking it in" - Yes, but that can all change and £600 a day is actually has a lot of tax taken off at Company level and then personal level.

"You will get something else, you always do" - Not always, my skills could go out of demand just as quickly as they come in demand.

"There is always work for Business Analysts" - Not quite, BA became a broad term for a role which has since shut up shop and become much more niche. 5 years ago, a generalist BA was valued but as markets decline then more niche experience is required.

[TheDogsNads]

I remember when contractors used to post on here. We all had war chests of 6 months minimum, and if you'd been contracting more than about 5 years, you had at least 12 months stashed away.
You also knew your burn rate and what could be dropped.

It now seems like it's a bunch of permies who want everything done for them. Whatever happened to contractor mentality? It's not surprising that IR35 has been brought in when you read the full time employee attitude on here!

Ive been on these boards for over 15 years (despite what you may think). Ive seen a change in the contractor 'ethos' over the last 4 or 5 years. Yes, we were all green at one time or another but there's clearly been an influx of people who do not really grasp what a contractor is.

Contracting is has become more niche and that is speeding up every year. But many newer contractors see contracting as another form of permiedom. Even a number of established contractors have slipped into becoming part and parcel of the client if they are truely honest with themselves.

[SussexSeagull]

I remember when contractors used to post on here. We all had war chests of 6 months minimum, and if you'd been contracting more than about 5 years, you had at least 12 months stashed away.
You also knew your burn rate and what could be dropped.

It now seems like it's a bunch of permies who want everything done for them. Whatever happened to contractor mentality? It's not surprising that IR35 has been brought in when you read the full time employee attitude on here!

We are quite possibly facing the worse recession in generations while leaving the largest trading block in the world and we are quite possibly going to have our range of opportunities reduced to our immediate area due to the changes to IR35.

Contractor mentality is all well and good but you can't magic up contracts or change the bigger picture.

[WTFH]

I remember when contractors used to post on here. We all had war chests of 6 months minimum, and if you'd been contracting more than about 5 years, you had at least 12 months stashed away.
You also knew your burn rate and what could be dropped.

It now seems like it's a bunch of permies who want everything done for them. Whatever happened to contractor mentality? It's not surprising that IR35 has been brought in when you read the full time employee attitude on here!

[dogzilla]

I feel like a lot of people should be more worried than they are but I'm not too worried myself. I paid of my mortgage and my wife works in the NHS so she can cover the bills
Also I feel like my skill set is fairly in demand and isn't going anywhere, do lots of cloud security assurance, infrastructure + application automation, ci/cd, shed loads of kubernetes, terraform, kafka, data analytics....

[ladymuck]

I was just saying they exist in answer to the question. Some do accept the self-employed and contractor, others don't. Some pay up to a fixed maximum, others a percentage of your income.