Part time contracts how to find

[GJABS]

I'm a SQL Developer contractor with 20 years experience, and my last contract ended 6 months ago.

Since then I've been working full-time on a plan-B that has so far been working out well, generating a reasonable income that -should- allow me to become financially independent and give up contracting.

While I believe it will continue to be successful, I'm starting to get concerned that should it ultimately fail (which it might), then I would need to get back into the contract market. The longer you are out of the market the more stale your skills become and the harder it will be to get your next contract.

So my question is - is there anything I can do to keep my IT skills current such that if, say, in two years time I need to get a contract, clients will still considering hiring me?

The obvious answer to this is that I could try and get a part-time contract of, say, 3 days a week. This would allow me to keep on doing the plan-B the other two days a week (which works). I could do a 5-day a week contract of course, but it would mean I'd need to suspend work on the plan-B.

So over the past four weeks I've been applying for roles on Jobserve and linkedin.
The problem is none of the advertised roles for my skill-set are for part time. They don't say what they are, and when I speak to agents after submitting my CV, they say that they are 5 days/week. Which to be fair is the assumption I have always had when applying for these types of roles in the past.
I've applied for around 15 roles so far, but only two of the clients have said they would in principle be happy to take someone on on a part time basis, and a couple of the agents said they had never heard of a part time contract.

Just wondering whether anyone else has tried to apply for part time roles, and whether they encountered the same issues?

Maybe I should be more proactive, and contact contractors and agents I have worked for in the past to see if they have any work. The trouble is I'm not much of a social person and haven't done very much networking/keeping in contact with people.
I could try and contact client companies directly perhaps.
Go to SQL events and talk to people who might know of someone who is hiring.
Comment on LinkedIn technical chat pages

Thing is I could do all these proactive steps - but if the time and effort put into it is significant, then I might end up as much time on it as I would have had I just gone for a 5-day a week contract.

Thanks

[ladymuck]

Part time gigs are a bit like rocking horse tulip or hens teeth.

The only time I've wangled them is when I already had a working relationship with the client. So, I'd suggest looking at your network and tapping up previous clients.

[d000hg]

I can think of two avenues:

1. existing contacts as LM says
2. very small clients who really want more of a part-time freelancer to do odd bits

There's little reason a big client would want .6 of a contractor unless perhaps to cover a maternity/paternity leave or long-term illness or something, I'd think.

You can totally include work on your plan B on your CV (as I'm sure you know) but maybe that's not actually involving much SQL-dev anyway?
You might consider full time contracts for 6 months with a 6 month gap so it averages as 50% but if you're pursuing a viable plan B, I think most of us including me would encourage you to go for it!

[northernladuk]

Part time gigs are a bit like rocking horse tulip or hens teeth.

The only time I've wangled them is when I already had a working relationship with the client. So, I'd suggest looking at your network and tapping up previous clients.

This is exactly my take as well.

[TheDude]

Total work = Actual work + Appearance of Work

With this in mind any contract can be part time.

[WTFH]

What the others have said.

Phone round past clients (particularly smaller ones) and say to them that you are looking for 1-2 days per week if they were interested. You might end up with multiple clients but only doing a day for each.
Equally you could look at doing a call-off contract. I did this for a friend's company a few years ago. They bought 12 days to be called off over a year. The contract guaranteed 12 days payment to me, no matter if I did less than that. If I did more, then the daily rate applied. First year I did 10 days, I think. They were happy, I was happy. The second year it was about 25 days, all paid for, everyone happy.
At that point I looked at their plans and advised them to get someone in full time for 3 months to get it done, but it was too big a commitment from me.

[edison]

This is quite common for 'fractional' work but tends to be for senior roles like IT Director, CIO or other expensive advisory roles. I can't really recall seeing demand for devs for example. Typically where a client can't afford or justify a full time person. Small to medium size companies might decide to have a CIO 2 days a week for example, to advise on more strategic matters. A lot of this work is never advertised (like a lot of interim work in general) so it really is about networking with contacts in those organisations and knowing the agents who specialise in this area.

One area where you might have more luck is not for profits (like councils or charities) who are sometimes more flexible on part time working.

[Zola]

I think a lot about how to find part-time contracts. The recruiters not so happy when I talked about my plans. I have a senior role right now, but in the longer term I would like to escape from 5 work days/w. If I change I will only for less work hours. I have one-two ex colleague who contacted me about some ad-hoc job. It worked well.
So maybe I need to invest some money about advertising? on what platforms?

GJABS thanks for the topic, and please update if you have more ideas

[northernladuk]

I think a lot about how to find part-time contracts. The recruiters not so happy when I talked about my plans. I have a senior role right now, but in the longer term I would like to escape from 5 work days/w. If I change I will only for less work hours. I have one-two ex colleague who contacted me about some ad-hoc job. It worked well.
So maybe I need to invest some money about advertising? on what platforms?

GJABS thanks for the topic, and please update if you have more ideas

Remember also the 'second contract is the hardest' rule applies here, if not more so. Yes you can find part time work when you are happily billing for 5 days. Might take awhile but for a select few it works.. but, the nature of our work is always temporary so whatever cushy arrangement you find will end in the not to distant future and you are back to square one with zero income coming in. Running a career on part time contract work is just not feasible for I would say virtually everyone bar the odd individual. We've seen over the years of the same questions on here it's incredibly difficult to find part time work, but to find two gigs that dovetail, and then find another around the same time one or both ends? It's just not going to work as a rolling plan.

[GJABS]

Remember also the 'second contract is the hardest' rule applies here, if not more so. Yes you can find part time work when you are happily billing for 5 days. Might take awhile but for a select few it works.. but, the nature of our work is always temporary so whatever cushy arrangement you find will end in the not to distant future and you are back to square one with zero income coming in. Running a career on part time contract work is just not feasible for I would say virtually everyone bar the odd individual. We've seen over the years of the same questions on here it's incredibly difficult to find part time work, but to find two gigs that dovetail, and then find another around the same time one or both ends? It's just not going to work as a rolling plan.

Agreed, and I am not suggesting that part-time contracts or indeed part time work of any kind is appropriate for someone at the start or middle of their career. It is only (perhaps) appropriate for me because I have a plan B and also am towards the end of my career (age 52) and fortunately have a lot of savings/investments to fall back on. When you're young the best thing to do is work as hard as you can, learn, have confidence that you can learn and grow, and build up that war chest.


Thanks for the other answers - useful.
FYI My plan B is investment-based, and does not involve IT skills unfortunately, so I can't stick it on my CV as anything relevant.