perm offer

[Fred Bloggs]

But........ in a £23k job are you going to get the hands on experience that you need to build on those courses? I think not.

[nomadd]

Not necessarily, most of the contractors I have worked with have been able to upskill through a combination of training, picking things up on the job, certification and research. I have been to move up the "skill ladder" through the above.

+1

I've been contracting continually for the last 21 years. Can't imagine there is any market for the stuff I was doing 10 years ago, let alone 15 or 20.

If you don't know how to "up-skill on the job" as a contractor, you're dead. Or permie, which is worse than being dead.

[MarillionFan]

Hang on a tick...18 an hour and 23K are indiciative of low skills.
Take the perm role and use it as a way to learn and upskill. You'll seldom get a chance as an out and out contractor.
Before you know 23 becomes 30 becomes 40 then can decide whether a perm life is for you or jump ship into 40 or 50 an hour contract roles.

...take the perm and milk it for the skillllllzzzzzzzz

WHS

I know a guy who has done front line support for the last 20 or so years. He's on a low wage and when mentioned to him he should go niche and skill up he was pretty indignant about it.

He enjoys his job but knows it's not well paid, but also doesnt want the hassle or have the inclination to do anything else. At the end of the day some people want to do that job and some people don't want to always keep changing roles/skills etc. Good all around skills for support is fine.

As he said, we can't all go around earning £400 per day+

In this case. Keep the contract.

[Scrag Meister]

Not all client cos are happy to be paying contractors to learn on the job.

I thought I was on a winner back in December with the option to learn C# while also doing my main job of VB/VBA. The client then decided that they were going to rewrite in C# with a skilled C# dev and so I got the boot and pure C# dev was bought in leaving the VBA to fend for itself.

Depends on the client though.

[SPURSN17]

well this is a 2nd line role.basic desktop support. Doesnt seem to be a great deal of progression in this role IE training etc only bonus really is the location.With the wage being quite low im tempted to take the chance and start looking around for other contracts near the end of this.

ive done my MCITP windows 7 just in the middle of doing my MCITP EA 2008.after this probs do the CCNA or CEH course so im looking to progress further into maybes security type role eventually.

Ive got nothing else lined u at the minute so aware of the fact that i may end up out of contract for a while or on a lower rate anyways.Just the drop in pay would be too hard for me to take and it would just be to looking for the next higher paid role.....

[Robinho]

When i stated my career and had no experience whatsoever, i earn't 23k.

I understand the rhetoric of gaining experience but 23k is painful low. Especially if you presumably live in London.

In addition, bottom feeder jobs can sometimes leave you doing donkey work, which don't add a lot of experience at all.

Personally i'd look for a better perm job.