Considering Contracting - is it worth it ?

[partimer]

unbias

Can I state the obvious, going on to a contractor site and saying is it worth going contracting ? That's like going into MacDoodles and asking do burgers taste nice. Hardly unbias views coming your way.

To anwser your question. Find a job closer to your home. It doesn't matter whether you're contract or permie. Relocating could be another option.

Be honest, nobody knows you better than yourself. Some people take to contracting and have no problems. Some people don't. If you hate having continuous interviews, taking tests, meeting new people i.e. no socialising with your work mates, etc.

What would your Mrs think if you were on the bench for 6 months ?
Only you can decide on what is and isn't important. Location and money is just a small part.

[eternalnomad]

Nick,

have a look at http://calculator.contractoruk.com/

They have some very useful tools to check perm 'v contract

Permanent To Contracting - Results : Permanent Summary
On a salary of £38,000 net income per month is £2,310
To earn the same contracting, outside of IR35, you would need a rate of £22 .
To earn the same contracting, inside of IR35, you would need a rate of £30.

The above calculations are based on various assumptions (like how many weeks per year you are in billable work etc) but you can also "tweak" these assumptions before you make your final decision.

What I would say (and have said it before) - dont make your decision to contract purely on financial grounds.

Personally I would only ever consider going back to a permie job for mega-bucks, the main reason being that I think these days there is no such thing as loyalty from a company to its employees.

[Alexander Coe]

Considering Contracting - is it worth it ?

in terms of money, have a look on the job boards - the link below covers 4 inc jobserve

http://www.cukjobs.co.uk/csw/Default.aspx

Although it depends somewhat on what your skills are, its worth being aware that the better paid roles in London are often in Finance, but they'll want 2 -4 years experience in Finance before you can get these... which is a bit of a viscous circle

[Alexander Coe]

http://www.cukjobs.co.uk/csw/Default.aspx

correction.. actually it covers 5 job boards now!

[ratewhore]

and maintain a sense of humour at all times...

[Fleetwood]

"vicious".
"Viscous" is applied to liquids

[ChimpMaster]

I guess it could be a viscous circle, a damning circle of ever decreasing rings sucking you deeper down to the depths of hell.

Heck who are we to argue?

[malvolio]

Ignore the pedants, they're still wrong anyway. If you ain't going to make more money, why go contract wth all the uncertainty? The (perm_salary / 100 = hourly_rate) equation works quite well in the real world, honest.

[expat]

Ignore the pedants, they're still wrong anyway. If you ain't going to make more money, why go contract wth all the uncertainty? The (perm_salary / 100 = hourly_rate) equation works quite well in the real world, honest.

I wish!

[Alexander Coe]

"vicious".
"Viscous" is applied to liquids

you know what I mean... am dyslexic and have a habbit of getting words mixed up

can be pretty embarassing when you mean to end a work e-mail "apologies for any inconvenience" but send "apologies for any incompetence" or even "apologies for any incontinence"