Start of another (overpaid, underworked) contract in the UK IT world!

[Scrag Meister]

Completely agree, contractors are generally well paid compared to permies, but heaps cheaper than using a consultancy co. like accenture, cgey, ibm, csc, kpmg etc. Most of us have seen these companies shipping in graduates (often bright and hardworking) with no/limited experience at £1000k+ per day.

At that rate I'd work a week and retire

[lukemg]

A number of factors have an impact on this, supply and demand but also perception of difficulty (opaque to many clients), how high the agency can talk it up (see they do add value sometimes), how much sh!t they are in. Very highly paid consultants actually help by making our rates look ok in comparison (you can still get the odd 'that's more than I get' from a manager).
Works the other way, go and see if support will pay your bills, it used to, but pays buttons now.
Also, don't underestimate the work just because you find it easy. Fixing a boiler/car is easy if you have the experience and that's what you are paying for.
Forget about whether its worth it, there is plenty of dead wood in most places earning big wages so I don't have any qualms getting whatever I can. When the market turns against you, you will be glad of a few years in the sun, just make sure you stash some at the time....

[jmo21]

With some decent permies (some tech, some managers) a correctly hired contractor team (ie. good at the actual skills), should always be way better than any of the ludicrously expensive consultancy companies.

[theroyale]

A number of factors have an impact on this, supply and demand but also perception of difficulty (opaque to many clients), how high the agency can talk it up (see they do add value sometimes), how much sh!t they are in. Very highly paid consultants actually help by making our rates look ok in comparison (you can still get the odd 'that's more than I get' from a manager).
Works the other way, go and see if support will pay your bills, it used to, but pays buttons now.
Also, don't underestimate the work just because you find it easy. Fixing a boiler/car is easy if you have the experience and that's what you are paying for.
Forget about whether its worth it, there is plenty of dead wood in most places earning big wages so I don't have any qualms getting whatever I can. When the market turns against you, you will be glad of a few years in the sun, just make sure you stash some at the time....

Its people playing up this 'perception of difficulty' that I've encountered throughout my career in IT.

Everyone in the IT hierarchy of a company (line managers upwards through to programme managers) seems to have an incentive in playing up the complexity of technical projects (they get to handle bigger budgets, get more resources, and eventually make themselves look more important in the context of the organisation. This opaqueness is easier to pull off in IT, of course, because non-IT people don't want to/can't assess the complexity of code by looking at it.

[Notascooby]

I think there's an incredible mark-up for just being in IT for a lot of roles.
Look at PMO / PM / BA - if these were outside IT would the rate be the same?

Now when a company buys into a niche or bleeding edge technology and the first thing they want to do is customise the heck out of it - then they'll have to pay through the nose because of a scarcity of resource.

Another thing that mystifies me is that companies are quite willing to use expensive contract resource for mundane and skill-less tasks becuase they just get on and do it.

The amount of time I've seen experienced PMs just fill in spreadsheets or knock-up slide packs and neglecting the actual project amazes me. Client thinks, oh we need more PM resource, no you need more secetarial resource, typing pools must have saved so much money!

Architects spending all their time drawing in visio - how about handing a sketch to a 16 yr old school leaver and getting them to draw it up?

If I were paying, I'd want my staff doing the high skilled roles and leave the admin to admin staff.

*says someone faffing on a forum.

[lukemg]

Shhhhh, slow down, you will ruin it for everybody.
I know this - in probably much less than 20 years time they will laugh their heads off at the hundreds of people employed at a big org just to keep systems ticking over like they are now. Everything will be cloud based, ultra resilient (only issues are data transfer rates and security, these are being or have been resolved). Every aspect of IT will be easy to operate, easy to change/customise and many times more resilient.
This will be known as the Golden Age for IT workers and we will join typesetters, garment makers and many other trades as old news.
If you haven't got a plan B - get one...

[MyUserName]

I have not really thought this through so there might be logical holes in this but ... I think that I am worth the rate I charge myself out at. Mainly because developing the skills and knowledge that I have takes years of work and effort. I reckon if I traded jobs with a fork lift truck driver or something like that I could learn his job before he could learn mine. Also the value I bring to my company makes my rate seem like peanuts.

When people challenge my day rate I normally regale them with a story I half remember about a suprano in an opera who was being interviewed (not in the opera). The interviewer found out that she was being paid thousand and thousands for each performance.

He was agast and asked 'How can you justify earning that much just for singing?' she smiled and replied 'if it is so easy, why don't you do it?'

[bobspud]

Shhhhh, slow down, you will ruin it for everybody.
I know this - in probably much less than 20 years time they will laugh their heads off at the hundreds of people employed at a big org just to keep systems ticking over like they are now. Everything will be cloud based, ultra resilient (only issues are data transfer rates and security, these are being or have been resolved). Every aspect of IT will be easy to operate, easy to change/customise and many times more resilient.
This will be known as the Golden Age for IT workers and we will join typesetters, garment makers and many other trades as old news.
If you haven't got a plan B - get one...

It won't be cloud that causes that. I speak to CEO's and IT directors a lot and most of them say yes I want a cloud but in my own data centre on dedicated storage and my own team of engineers on callout... Ask the average director if he would be comfortable to put all his toys into anonymous compute power where servers pop up and die randomly depending on what box or disk died in the background and they run a mile.

Cloud is a great testing ground but its never going to live up to its hype.

[Old Greg]

I cost 3 times my permie equivalents. In return I deliver complex projects that they would fail to deliver.

[ArmitageShanks]

A number of factors have an impact on this, supply and demand but also perception of difficulty (opaque to many clients), how high the agency can talk it up (see they do add value sometimes), how much sh!t they are in. Very highly paid consultants actually help by making our rates look ok in comparison (you can still get the odd 'that's more than I get' from a manager).
Works the other way, go and see if support will pay your bills, it used to, but pays buttons now.
Also, don't underestimate the work just because you find it easy. Fixing a boiler/car is easy if you have the experience and that's what you are paying for.
Forget about whether its worth it, there is plenty of dead wood in most places earning big wages so I don't have any qualms getting whatever I can. When the market turns against you, you will be glad of a few years in the sun, just make sure you stash some at the time....

Agree. There are other drivers too. Often bringing in one of the big 5 consultantcies is a sign of weak management.
It's a classic case of "I don't really know what to do, I'll bring in consultancy X. If it works I'll look good. If it fails its not my fault because I bought in the best and they failed."