Demand for IT contractors rocketing? You're joking.

[ensignia]

One question : do they know?

Two of them have no clue.

It's easy enough if you have a backbone and don't accept every meeting request. There have been a few tricky moments but it's workable.

It's only three clients for a very short while, it'll go back to two in mid-May and then just the one from July onwards.

[GitMaster69]

Two of them have no clue.

It's easy enough if you have a backbone and don't accept every meeting request. There have been a few tricky moments but it's workable.

It's only three clients for a very short while, it'll go back to two in mid-May and then just the one from July onwards.

I'm interviewing for second one currently.

will take me closer to 1000pd and will probably hire a permie if saved enough to pay for a year in a business

[jamesbrown]

Two of them have no clue.

It's easy enough if you have a backbone and don't accept every meeting request. There have been a few tricky moments but it's workable.

It's only three clients for a very short while, it'll go back to two in mid-May and then just the one from July onwards.

Three clients "fulltime" on T&M, that's funny...

As LM says, fixed price work is one thing, but T&M is, well, blagging it.

[ensignia]

Three clients "fulltime" on T&M, that's funny...

As LM says, fixed price work is one thing, but T&M is, well, blagging it.

Very much so.

But the reason it's three clients is because two of them were really happy with my work and decided to extend beyond their original offers. I actually had to turn down one's offer of an extension but there's a small overlap until it does end which means I collect three day rates

[MyUserName]

Wow. I didn't think C++ lent itself to financials. That's probably why they have to pay top dollar.

And before everyone things they can go and learn this, it is probably the only 6 months work in a decade that a specialist with just those skills would get.

Yeah I worked for a good few years in banks etc. using C++. C# ate a lot of the front end work and the low level stuff required Linux knowledge so the field got smaller and smaller. Probably still a few C++ systems around though.

[MyUserName]

Yeah, but it's the subject matter expertise they're paying for, primarily. Agree that it's unusual for IT, but not unusual for SMEs in many industries. They're often filled without being advertised though.

Agreed. The C++ guys could be got for a third of that, the PhD in Quants is what drove the price up.

[NowPermOutsideUK]

Yeah I worked for a good few years in banks etc. using C++. C# ate a lot of the front end work and the low level stuff required Linux knowledge so the field got smaller and smaller. Probably still a few C++ systems around though.

So did I using C sharp and the rates were 650. This is front office Credot derivatives in the sexy times. I do not believe quants are on 1k a day never mind 2k

[Bluenose]

Id also like to know the specifics of the 2k a day role and what industry and skills it involves

these roles are out there but are seldom advertised, those are for CIO/CTO types and the odd C-suite MD advisory roles where they don't want to pay £3.5k per day for a senior MD level Bane & Company or McKinsey type. The rates are that high because perm MD roles pay £350k-500k.

Advertised rates top out at about £1,600 pd and those are for programme managers/directors that used to operate at ED level. Thats because perm salaries for those types of people cost approx. £225-250k.

If you go outside of I.T i do recall £1500+ pd being quoted for interim Anesthesiologist's and Specialist Radiologists a few years ago but i don't know if that was a temporary blip.

[Pragmatist]

I was surprised to see the article 'Demand for IT contractors rocketed in March to 32-month high' on the front page of the site.
That's certainly not been my experience. The market is pretty much dead

As a former manual tester, and trying to be honest, the following looks increasingly likely: If you stay as a manual tester - you are pretty much screwed.

But not because of Automation - that's an overlapping but incongruent skillset, which doesn't exactly replace Manual Test, rather compliments it.
Manual test is actually still quite important depending on Sprint Velocity and CD/CI models - many agile teams have a very faulty concept of 'Complete' and routinely finish Sprints without full coverage, asynchronous timing issues etc., fail to understand end-users, reputational damage, and ultimately can only get away with it because they are deploying into a non-regulated industry.
Try working in a Regulated sector and it's a totally different ball game.

However, as I'm sure you know, Manual testers are regarded as bottom rung in IT, even looked upon as borderline unskilled - so you will be the first to fall in what is probably going to be a massive restructuring of the UK IT Sector over the coming years.

My opinion is that many British IT workers are going to be screwed eventually, but it's a question of how badly and when. The more skilled you are, the less cause for concern.
But I have no reservation saying that the Conservatives & HMRC have a serious problem with UK Contracting - and they have been very successful in their attacks so far.

These are the changes the Conservatives made on 01 Jan 2021:

• There will no longer be a cap on the number of skilled migrants who can receive work visas.
• The “resident labour-market test”, under which employers have to show there is no suitably qualified British candidate for the role has also been removed.
• Immigrants must now clear a reduced salary threshold of £25,600 per annum. This was reduced from £30,000 per annum.
• The IT and Financial sectors are predicted to be the largest "beneficiaries" of the new cheaper workforce.

I'm sure there will still be Manual Test jobs, but the catch is - if you stay in Manual Testing in the UK, you are increasingly going to be competing with a growing number of Southeast Asians who will work for less than you, without overtime, and will sign away their WTD rights. Over time, that is going to apply to more and more areas of IT.

Many of them don't plan to stay long-term (hence repatriate huge amounts of money - the Indian government in recognition of this continues amending taxation to encourage repatriation of foreign income). It's very difficult to compete with someone who can work for less than you, but still afford to buy a home outright in their own country and leave when it suits them, while you are trying to raise a family in the UK with your collection of pennies.

Indian workers in the UK alone increased by 71% pre-2021, which suits UKGov rather well for a multitude of reasons, many of which are unchanged since they flung open the doors to the A-10 countries in 2004.

Just to be clear here, I am not British myself and have absolutely no objections to foreign workers - that would make me quite the hypocrite.
But I do think the betrayal of British workers by their own government (so far) is simply remarkable (before we even mention a post-Brexit deal). The abolition of the resident labour-market test is indefensible.

The UK government has been rather clever because those who want less immigration have had their attention diverted with talk of tough new rules, when the reality is that there is a much more liberal regime that favours foreign workers” – Yash Dubal, AY&J Solicitors

There has been tons written about all this if you want to go looking, but my advice would be to agonize less over the why, and just do something about it now.
Honestly, you're completely ****** if you stay in Manual test so go learn Ruby & Javascript and go from there into Automation. That will at least give you some buffer.
Forget totally about contracting until you are good enough to leave the UK.
Get a PAYE job that will allow you to grow. Specialize or at the minimum, learn something where you can't be so easily replaced.
If you get a contract in the UK, consider it a very lucky break, but your focus should be on developing your skillset as much as possible and realistically you will only be able to do that in a PAYE role due to the very strict rules around IR35.


In respect of your broader question tho - I completely agree
Personally, I left IT altogether and moved to Pharma years ago and had a good run contracting. That's all over now.
UK Contracting in the Pharma world has been utterly obliterated.
And the same migrant phenomenon is happening in UK Pharma.

There are far fewer British people working in UK Pharma now compared to even just a few years ago - many are doing remote contracts for overseas clients and increasingly as Lockdown peters out, I am seeing people give up on the UK and go overseas. The Best of British are making foreign companies strong - and they are being handsomely rewarded for it.

Meanwhile in the UK, companies such as Bristol Labs serve as an entry point for a much cheaper non-native workforce, who are progressively filtering out across the UK.
PAYE staff in Pharma are notoriously bad - contractors have been keeping UK Pharma functioning for at least 20 years, so it has always been a matter of bums on seats where staff are concerned, hence salaries and conditions are terrible.
I've honestly no idea what the industry is going to do now that they can't avail of contractors, but I think we are either going to have some serious accidents or else UK industry will just fall way behind Europe/USA.

[GigiBronz]

maybe it was the plan all along, decimate any other industry and drive peaky people away that could potentially revolt. Replace them with people less likely to put down roots, weaker sense of identity.

Usually things happen for a reason, there is some incompetence and corruption but maybe there are other reasons behind this as well.
<tin foil hat on>
keep the financial sector thriving with it’s layers of secrecy.

you can’t keep all the sectors happy and especially now out of the EU, some people might want to see things being developed under their nose not in a 3rd party country where it’s difficult to keep people accountable.

why would you have brexit, an event of that magnitude for what? I don’t buy the will of the people.