What's it like out there?

[TheBigYinJames]

I'm just coming to the end of one which has been going a year, so I've had the unadulterated joy of not having to speak with agents etc for a while. What with all the recession talk, I'm a bit nervous about how bad it is in the programming sector, specifically .Net C# and all that good stuff.

Seems to be a lot of jobs on the job-boards but then that's not always a reflection of reality - sometimes the more calls you get, it just means that the agents are more desperate.

What's it like out there? Am I likely to be living off the savings for a while?

[Torran]

Dunno mate. I'm pming in FS in embra and its fine





sorry couldn't resist

[TheBigYinJames]

Dunno mate. I'm pming in FS in embra and its fine
sorry couldn't resist

Hah, any jobs going there then? I know where B*rcl*ys have buried the bodies, if that's any use

[chicane]

What's it like out there? Am I likely to be living off the savings for a while?

on the streets

On a serious note, I've been contracting through agencies for two years in web development and not seen it this bad in that time.

[TheBigYinJames]

on the streets

On a serious note, I've been contracting through agencies for two years in web development and not seen it this bad in that time.

I live in Ipswich, it's WAY too dangerous to ply your trade on the streets here I've been doing this on and off for 15 years, and I've never seen it so bad as 2003-4. I was doing Perl back then and the bottom fell out the hatchet-job market, I had to hang up my stetson forever and retrain in C# to get back on the gravy again.

[NickNick]

Things change though. As James has said on another topic, if youare prepared to be more mobile (even contemplating going through the M4/M5 interchange) then the work is out there.

The place I'm at at the moment is having a terrible time finding Project managers for example. The location is pretty poor but soon enough, I think that corner of the contracting triangle will become less important.

[TheBigYinJames]

Things change though. As James has said on another topic, if youare prepared to be more mobile (even contemplating going through the M4/M5 interchange) then the work is out there.

Things would have to get pretty grim before I'd consider the M4/M5 interchange In the past I've found Bristol rates can be laughably low, I was once offered a permie development job for £18k over there. How would that keep me in Scrumpy?