Hard to find contracts?

[XLMonkey]

ITContractorUK : re. the costs and benefits, if you send me a pm I have a spreadsheet to calculate the costs and revenue based on your own circumstances (a bit more detailed than the things on the contractor websites).

btw. I don't do it just for the money. But if it wasn't for the money, I wouldn't do it...

[rsingh]

[QUOTE=XLMonkey;

I don't do it just for the money. [/QUOTE]

No, you do it for a tulip load of money.

[ibnul]

Go for it, if you have the bottle. I will give you my own example:
I was earning 75k + bonus in an investment bank, and after all the deduction I was getting £4300 each month. I was barley living hand to mouth with only one house and 2 holidays annually
I did take the plunge on contracting some time ago and now I got 2 house, and at least 4 holdays a year. Yes some times are rough, like last year when I was benched for 4 months but those days you just tight your belt. Don't worry about company things as well, get a good accountant, and pay him/her for the job and they will sort all those things. As my accountant says, you keep earning and I will keep the taxman happy
I can tell you now life is better to be a contractor, as someone already says, no performance review (I still dreaded those 12 pages doc that has to be approved by my line manager 4 times a year). The only thing I miss is the "sicki" days, apart from that contracting rules

[theroyale]

Also I like to work my butt off for 8-12 months then bog off somewhere for a few months - bit hard to do that as a permie.

Also i like to turn up, do my best possible effort for 8 hours, then go home - no performance reviews, no wage freezes, no other permie/HR crappola. Being a permie sucks.

Well said! It's exactly these things that are making me like this life. I couldn't STAND performance reviews and appraisals and all that sh*t when I was a permie - things are a lot cleaner here as a contractor.

AND average contract lengths of 3 months allow me to think season to season. I might work through the winter and think about taking the spring off. This is happiness

[Scrag Meister]

Not sure I would recommend handing your notice in prior to looking, if you are on a months notice.

Most (I'm in London) are willing to accept 1 months notice before contract start, as reasonable if your skillset matches.

As it happens I did start contracting by handing my notice in, but I was on 3 months notice and however good you are 3 months is too long for the Client Co to wait. I was benched looking for 3 months after leaving, on the positive side this enabled me to be focussed on finding the exact roles, being available for making phones calls and attending interviews, I was looking for a specific niche of the banking industry than accepting any old tulip contract that came along. Started in 2007, just started my 2nd contract back in May.

Good luck in your search, its worth the effort.