Contracting in the Banking sector?

[Bright Spark]

all depends on which area and manager you end up with, some are very
strict and clockwatchers etc, whilst the opposite extreme is no one gives a sh*t what you do and how you do it as long as you deliver on time and in budget.

[BlasterBates]

...ah so conditionally a life of hell.

What are the probabilities ?

is it 20% hell 50% hell or 90% hell.

[lukemg]

Key thing for me is your prospects for advancement at current place. If these are genuine and not just the usual carrot dangled at permies which never quite pans out due to reorg etc, then you need to consider staying if you like the people/place. 500/day is a good headline figure and does kick the money in (I was on this last year) but there are plenty on here who are seeing their rates slide and gaps between jobs getting longer as the market shifts in a different direction/new entrants/outsourcing (including me).
You can expect to be hired for technical knowledge and not to alter the strategic direction (this can be frustrating if you have been at that level previously). This knowledge may become routine/boring to you and less valued over time (almost certain for everything except SAP). If you are a pure techie then maybe this is fine but I am sensing more of a desire to jump up the ladder a rung or 2 and take a more management/strategic role which the current place may offer.
Money wise, I am doing better in total terms over the course of career so far than friends in other professions (e.g. bean counters) but I am noticing their salary/package/pension stepping steadily upwards over time along with the job levels, my yearly earnings graph looks like the worlds scariest roller-coaster and there is every chance they will match/overtake me if we count everything up at the end.
Point is, if the company is going places and you can go with it, then that might be the smart money. Forget about the travelling all over though, novelty of that wears off very quick, even quicker with family at home.
Good luck.

[Tempted2Contract]

Thanks for a bunch of top class replies.

I think I'm closing in on a decision but it's been quite a ride. I think I can genuinely offset the contract benefits with opportunities here if I consider things like:

- my company is more than happy for me to spend several weeks a year training on anything I want to relevant to my career path and to front some decent cash for it.
- I've had some problems in the last 18 months with a nasty RSI type issue from 10 years of computer work with bad posture. My company were very supportive though it and if that reared it's ugly head again contracting I'd be screwed
- 4 years service means the redundancy package will be reasonable should the worst happen
- I've got a ton of unvested shares that I'd be saying goodbye to that will be a nice earner in the near future.
- I've had another look on the job sites and I can't see another contract that really lists my skill set (this was a real eye opener)

I'm also speaking to people about roles in Sydney and New York and if I had my hand on heart I'd say these were more compelling options still.

I'm still getting the odd pang to break free and go for it, but I think I might have brought this to a logical conclusion.

Thanks everyone *tips his hat*

[tommyc]

Would I be correct in concluding that this is a life of hell?

I work in a German and Swiss banks, and it is easy peasy, I bugger off at 12:30 on Friday etc. I used to get annoyed with my PM if made me stayed past 17:30.

This kind of description puts me off a return to London.

Like others have been saying it really depends on the department and manager.. Unfortuantely mine is a workaholic who loves his job. My observation of everyone else in the office is that they work hard for long hours and take minimal breaks..

Having said that if you are tulip hot and can produce results beyond expectations then I bet they'd let you off a bit of browsing the web and taking a proper lunch. Unfortunately in my experience traders and managers do not always understand the hold ups that occur with development / bug fixing and expect a reproduction of that time when you whipped up a nice app for them in a few days (which turned out to be easy for you due to some nice API or coding tricks and no bugs crept in) every time they ask you for something.

Maybe its a front / middle / back office thing. I've always worked in a small firm close to traders and bonuses have been big but work expected high.. Although then again I've friends in the big investment banks who have been doing slavery hours for years but have plenty of $$$

[GreenerGrass]

£3500 take home is about a 60k salary, which with a 9% pension and 28 days hoiday is not a bad package at all.
But I think you could gross 120k a year on £500 a day if you don't take much holiday and days off sick.
Over 10 years this difference will add up to a very large amount of money, and in terms of (disposable) investable income you are actually more than doubling what you will have available. Enough to pay a house off MUCH quicker and own it outright, and easily double your pension pot when compared with the permie job.
This will give you quite a few options for a lifestyle shift out of working fulltime, assuming you do get continuous contracts which is of course the big gamble. The travelling isn't an issue if you move to just outside London, there are plenty of places 30-40 mins train ride from the City or Canary Wharf.

I'm on a similar rate and the tipping point in terms of risk vs reward is probably about a 75k salary + decent pension + bonus. But thats assuming contract roles are readily available. If they are rare in your niche then either the rate is not high enough, or you're better off staying put on 60k pa.

Personally the thought of having to work in IT full time until 65 scares me a lot more than working in an investment bank for the next few years. It can be tough but it isn't that bad, and the beauty of contracting is if you do end up with the manager from hell then it's only going to last 6 months before you move on somewhere else.

[Tempted2Contract]

I'm on a similar rate and the tipping point in terms of risk vs reward is probably about a 75k salary + decent pension + bonus. But thats assuming contract roles are readily available. If they are rare in your niche then either the rate is not high enough, or you're better off staying put on 60k pa.

Personally the thought of having to work in IT full time until 65 scares me a lot more than working in an investment bank for the next few years. It can be tough but it isn't that bad, and the beauty of contracting is if you do end up with the manager from hell then it's only going to last 6 months before you move on somewhere else.

I agree that the sums work right now but that 75k tipping point probably isn't too far away. In 6-8 years that's more than realistic and then for the next 30 years of my career I could be pushing on well past that (I'm only 29 just now). Either way seems like a gamble of sorts but at the very least it's made me think long and hard about what I want from life, a question I realise I didn't know the answer to!

Thanks for your opinion, your thinking is exactly where I'm at if think short to medium term...I'm trying hard to think about the long game but there's simply too many variables to be sure.