Why no part-time contract roles?

[chicane]

For what it's worth, my current clientco has two part time contractors on site who work three days a week of their own choosing. Both contractors started full time and negotiated a part-time arrangement a couple of months after joining.

I think in this particular case, I think the availability of part-time work is a side effect of the fact that despite the required skillset supposedly being commodity-level, the clientco seem to find it extremely hard to recruit contractors of the required skill level and experience. They're therefore more keen to offer flexible terms to existing contractors rather than let them go in the hope that somebody else equally good will be on the market.

Not sure if clients in other sectors have such difficulty in finding the right people, but there must be scope for flexibility where this is the case.

[Fred Bloggs]

I have never asked to work part time but seeing as I find a typical contract week usually involves about 8 to 10 hours of actual work (the other hours in the week are spent practising the art of seeming to be busy whilst actually doing nothing, an essential contractor art form) I would think it likely that I could negotiate it without losing any productivity what so ever.