Are dayrates suddenly taking a dive?

[Eirikur]

Up to a month ago day rates for the type of contracts I'm doing were generally between £475 and 550, now I hardly see anything above £400 mostly around 350 and one agent even dared to call me for 250 per day

Are others seeing a similar trend?

[Old Greg]

Psychocandy will be along shortly to rule on this question.

[The Spartan]

Up to a month ago day rates for the type of contracts I'm doing were generally between £475 and 550, now I hardly see anything above £400 mostly around 350 and one agent even dared to call me for 250 per day

Are others seeing a similar trend?

What do you specialise in though?

[MicrosoftBob]

Nope just had a renewal agreed yesterday, rate crept up about 5%

Some people have had rate cuts, other rate rises, unless it relates to your sector and skills it's hard to compare stories

[BigTime]

The market in my area seems a bit thin at the moment and the few contracts quoting rates are low. Just a lull and irrelevant as I'm not benched. The boom months for me are May to September.

[Eirikur]

What do you specialise in though?

Some specialist area within telecoms and CRM

[nomadd]

Are others seeing a similar trend?

I turned down my current gig. twice before they managed to find lots of extra cash down the back of a sofa.

Clients and Agents are "trying it on" a lot at the moment.

Don't be fooled. Hold your ground.

Or take a long holiday.

Your call.

[MicrosoftBob]

I turned down my current gig. twice before they managed to find lots of extra cash down the back of a sofa.

Clients and Agents are "trying it on" a lot at the moment.

Don't be fooled. Hold your ground.

Or take a long holiday.

Your call.

Agency margins are on the slide, at least from people I know and current client. Don't know if it's a general thing, but that might be making them even more vulture like than normal

[MyUserName]

I am in finance and C++, I got a rate rise this renewal.
However most jobs I get emails about seem to have very low rates.

[nomadd]

However most jobs I get emails about seem to have very low rates.

Yeah, but email is the agents ultimate "fire and forget" weapon for bottom trawling. Cheap too.

Shoot the same low-offer email to 1000 registered addresses and hope that some fool will call in.

Beats an agent having to phone 1000 contractors just to be laughed at (or worse. )