How much does an agency charge over the rate

[newbie-rookie]

Let's say you have contract for couple of weeks. And offered rate is £250 daily. (PHP Developer)

Any idea how much actually client is paying to the agency?

Thanks

[malvolio]

Wrong question. "What percentage of the Agency's charge are you getting?" is the right question. Get that clear and you'll save yourself a lot of grief. The bit that matters is the £250 - is that what you want to get for this piece of work under these conditions.

The answer by the way is "Who knows". It's probably around 25% for a short haul job, they have overheads to cover, after all. Industry average is somwhere between 12% and 17% these days, but every case is different.

[newbie-rookie]

Ok, let me rephrase my question.
Initial my contract is for 4 weeks and the client already asked for my business card and they said they will contact me in the future if they need a php developer again. I am guessing they want to bypass the agency. If this is the case, how much do I need to charge them?

Thanks.

[NotAllThere]

Wrong question. "What percentage of the Agency's charge are you getting?" is the right question. Get that clear and you'll save yourself a lot of grief. The bit that matters is the £250 - is that what you want to get for this piece of work under these conditions.

The answer by the way is "Who knows". It's probably around 25% for a short haul job, they have overheads to cover, after all. Industry average is somwhere between 12% and 17% these days, but every case is different.

Bigger agencies tend to have larger standard margins - perhaps that's why their bigger. For example, Progressive have 25% as their standard. It also seems that at a certain point as daily rate increases, the margin in %age terms also increases.

[youwhut]

Hays = 5.5%

[malvolio]

Hays = 5.5%

On a PSL with a tightly defined invoicing regime...

The average agency needs around 9-10% to break even if they haven't got guaranteed payment from the client, becuase they have to service the cost of lost investment of roughly £1m per 30 contractors as well as their operating overheads.

[TheRefactornator]

Real Resourcing taking 29% of the gross in my case. This is not a guess.

[SteveV]

Most ofmine where 10%ish. Capital took 20%

[HankWangford]

Real Resourcing taking 29% of the gross in my case. This is not a guess.

sheesh, when is your renewal

[thunderlizard]

they have overheads to cover

Their main overhead, lest we forget, is making about 1000 phone calls for every 1 that results in a placement. Of course that's the last one they'll tell you about.