Which is the best site to find contract work in UK

[DaniX]

I haven't done contract work for many years, but I'm thinking of going back. I'm a .NET developer.

Back in the day I used to upload my CV to itjobs.co.uk and in a few days would get multiple calls from hiring agencies, some fake some real. What is the best site to upload one's CV these days?

[dx4100]

I haven't done contract work for many years, but I'm thinking of going back. I'm a .NET developer.

Back in the day I used to upload my CV to itjobs.co.uk and in a few days would get multiple calls from hiring agencies, some fake some real. What is the best site to upload one's CV these days?

Honestly now is not the right time. Read the state of the market thread. You defo want to make sure you have at least a 6 month war chest first. Jobserve and linkedin are the best IMO.

[ShandyDrinker]

Honestly now is not the right time. Read the state of the market thread. You defo want to make sure you have at least a 6 month war chest first. Jobserve and linkedin are the best IMO.

^^ This.

I wouldn't entertain entering the contract market right now. Given how bad 2024 is likely to be, I'd be wanting a 12 month war chest. If you've got a decent permie job, I'd think long and hard about jumping into the contract market. .NET developer is a commodity skillset that many are being shipped in from offshore or working from offshore to fulfil. Unless you've got some decent niche business skills or technical skills on Azure/AWS/GCP too then the pickings may well be slim.

[northernladuk]

What the above posters say. The days of uploading your CV and waiting for calls is long gone. There are 100's of experienced contractors as well as rafts of inexperienced ones and downright chancers applying for all decent roles. They recruiters don't need to call you anymore. They'll have a pile of CV's that will have multiple perfectly suited contractors on their desk even before they put the ads on the boards let along bothering to call you.

As to what's the best way to go about it try the search method as we've been over this multiple times recently. You'll get a lot of old posts but IMO the sites on there are still valid. In google type <keywords> site:forums.contractoruk.com Mess about with the keywords to get different results to make sure you're getting all the threads.

[avonleigh]

I haven't done contract work for many years, but I'm thinking of going back. I'm a .NET developer.

Back in the day I used to upload my CV to itjobs.co.uk and in a few days would get multiple calls from hiring agencies, some fake some real. What is the best site to upload one's CV these days?

The contract market is in turmoil currently and has been for quite a while. So I wouldn't be entertaining going contracting now. You may find work but you may also find that three months down the line you can't find work. I would assess the situation next summer and see if things are different. But it could be another 12-18 months before things improve.

[dsc]

I'd stick to perm for now if you can, apparently 2024 is going to be even worse, so that should be fun, even perm might not be safe then. If you have a lined up contract for say 6-12month, also think hard about jumping over from perm as the budget might get pulled, or it might never materialise after you've left your perm position, you can read loads of stories similar to this in the State of the market thread.

[Fraidycat]

LinkedIn

Although you will be up against some desperate contractors on there, but it does show how bad the market is at the moment:

[courtg9000]

From what i'm hearing I don't think there is much about and the prognosis is poor.

[WTFH]

I haven't done contract work for many years, but I'm thinking of going back. I'm a .NET developer.

Back in the day I used to upload my CV to itjobs.co.uk and in a few days would get multiple calls from hiring agencies, some fake some real. What is the best site to upload one's CV these days?

Out of interest, are you the same person who, this time last year said you were getting out of contracting and applying for your first permanent job?
https://forums.contractoruk.com/gene...contracts.html

[northernladuk]

Out of interest, are you the same person who, this time last year said you were getting out of contracting and applying for your first permanent job?
https://forums.contractoruk.com/gene...contracts.html

Busted.. So whatever the reality is the post above adds a new dimension. As you can see everyone has said the same about the market. New info has now come to light that you aren't that long out of uni will have significantly less experience than a vast majority of contractors and perms which puts you at a disadvantage however bad the market is.

Under experienced person going contracting in this current climate. Flat no from me. You might get a contract but can you get the next, and the next end to end? More than three month breaks between each one and you'd be financially (and probably mentally) better off in a perm role.