Working more locally

[BolshieBastard]

I started the thread recently titled: "Why the hell are there no contracts in Manchester!?!"

In the last 12 months I have had interviews in:
-Chester
-Liverpool
-Preston
-Blackpool
-Crewe
-Oxford
-Derby
-Macclesfield (would be a dream come true to get one this close!)
-Exceter

You would expect 1 in 2 or 1 in 3 to be in Manchester but I have never managed to get anywhere near a Manchester contract. So I can't imagine leicester or the surrounding cities offering anything better. You are within a good distance of London so that't the best option IMO.

I am most likely to leave my current place at the end of contract in a couple of weeks regardless of whether they offer me extension and look for somewhere close to home - for the same reasons you highlighted. However I might live to regret it.....

There are jobs in Manchester. There have been loads of roles advertised this year. For example

Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive (right in front of Picadilly Station)
NHS (Picadilly Gardens)
CIS (in the city centre using Vision Plus, over 10 roles on this project alone)
Greater Manchester Police

What is stopping people getting these roles is either the wrong skillset or too high a rate demand. All these roles attracted rates of circa 300 a day. Course some people wouldnt consider such a rate and consider it beneath themselves but, if you want to stay local, I dont understand that attitude.

[nomadd]

I also see the myth that there are tons of juicy perm jobs available for contractors in all locations is alive and well. There aren't, bob is doing them and you are a bad risk for desertion when the market picks up.

Too true. When I've been scanning the admittedly poor contract market in the NW for the past year or so, I've noticed the permie market has been even worse. And those few jobs that do appear have been attached to truly appalling salaries.

In my last role in the NW, if you closed your eyes and walked through the door into the I.T. Dept., you'd have thought you'd just stepped off a plane landed in India. Or Singapore.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Places like IBM and Crapita have a good 'work from home office' ethos.

Look for firms who have offices within your commute range, and check out their websites, see if they have any vacancies,
e.g. Cambridge Consultants - UK Job Vacancies
Working for us | Barclays GRB

With Peoplesoft, thought about cross-training into OeBS? Maybe there'd be more oppties in that?

EDIT, some obvious stuff I'm dure you've done
Leicester Recruitment Agencies
Leicester Jobs: Local jobs in Leicester from the major job sites



EDIT2: here's a PS vacancy in Leics
HR System Consultant

Another idea, find out who uses PS, and contact them direct
e.g. PeopleSoft Users UK
Or go to a user group meeting

I happen to know that Derby University uses PS.

Cheers - lots of ideas there - I hadn't thought/of/done half that - I have been lucky with gigs up to press.

[Fred Bloggs]

There are jobs in Manchester. There have been loads of roles advertised this year. For example

Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive (right in front of Picadilly Station)
NHS (Picadilly Gardens)
CIS (in the city centre using Vision Plus, over 10 roles on this project alone)
Greater Manchester Police

What is stopping people getting these roles is either the wrong skillset or too high a rate demand. All these roles attracted rates of circa 300 a day. Course some people wouldnt consider such a rate and consider it beneath themselves but, if you want to stay local, I dont understand that attitude.

£300 is my expectation for the NW. It's still been dire.

[BolshieBastard]

£300 is my expectation for the NW. It's still been dire.

300 a day is near the top end of the current market for the NW. I know the role in MC with the NHS was over 300. Other roles with CIS were 275ish.

Point is for 25 quid a day and being local, why do people insist on 300 a day or better?

Im on 300 a day with an international bank in the NW. I commute an hour and a half each way daily. By the time my contract ends, I'll have been there for a year. Im in my 3rd spell with them so tbh, chasing an extra 50 to 75 quid a day but living 200 miles away doesnt appeal.

[Mephisto]

I feel very speshul to be only just the wrong side of £300 p/day in the NW!

Would take a bit less to stick around too but more than prepared to shift elsewhere if/when the bigger rates come calling from Londinium or the M4 corridor... or Surrey/Hampshire/Kent/<insert generic county from the Sarf here>

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

£300 is my expectation for the NW. It's still been dire.

I would take 275 and it's still awful. Have rates always been this bad?

[nomadd]

I would take 275 and it's still awful. Have rates always been this bad?

Nope, was on £525 / day as recently as a couple of years ago in the NW.

In 2009, I was getting calls for the same job at under £200. A nice Indian gentleman from TechMahindra. I just kept laughing. He kept on phoning. At one stage he was advertising the role on Jobserve for £160-180.

Rates seem to have climbed back up since then, but they've climbed back up in London too. An average rate I see in the NW is about £350. Can near double that in London, so might as well stay here for a couple more years...

EDIT: An average of £350 for my line of work, I should have said.

[Fred Bloggs]

I'm not in IT but for my skillset (process engineering) in the NW I have never seen a job paying more than £45 and that is very rare. There seems a real problem with getting over the £40/hour mark. My last job (finished in April this year) in the NW was paying £42.50. For the last 18 months there has been virtually no work really to speak of at any rate. Recently, similar process engineering jobs have been paying about £37/hour. There has been a flurry of jobs recently, far more than any time over the last 18 months, so hopefully rates will pick up a bit in 2011. I'll be back in the NW market aboout May 2011 I think.

[dang65]

It's not just the rate that's the problem with local jobs, it's also the sheer dreariness a lot of the time. Every job I've done down in London, or in Europe has been for big name clients on interesting, fast-moving and high-profile projects which other clients recognise on your CV, and which end up in public view on the web, so you can actually show your work to people.

I've done three local contracts around Manchester, and they've all been corporate intranet, half-launched, bland projects with vague, moveable deadlines. And they're always based on dull industrial estates which you have to drive to in a car and where you die of boredom if you try going for a lunchtime stroll. And I'm starting another of those roles in the New Year after finishing my current one in London.

Yes, I'm looking forward to less travel and being at home by teatime, but I'm also bracing myself for a bleak and uninspiring few months at work.