Career at a crossroads

[adam42]

Are both job markets suitable for your skill set and target rate? If they aren't, then you may get the worst of all worlds - living in the north but having to commute weekly to London.

Yes that is a danger - but I have been watching jobserve quite intensively over the last few months and it looks like the rates up there are fine for me. £300 pd at least. Outgoings wouldn't be so high judging by the price of a pint but my beer consumption is not what it used to be anyway. House prices are the main thing.

The main difference is the frequency of the job postings - London has 10 times the number if not more.

[flipFlop]

... when I went for it Ive [sic] never been out of work and am always offered extensions.

We all wish we are "always offered extensions", just like you you clever boy.

[eek]

Yes that is a danger - but I have been watching jobserve quite intensively over the last few months and it looks like the rates up there are fine for me. £300 pd at least. Outgoings wouldn't be so high judging by the price of a pint but my beer consumption is not what it used to be anyway. House prices are the main thing.

The main difference is the frequency of the job postings - London has 10 times the number if not more.

The problem with Northumberland is that you really only have Newcastle and Edinburgh to commute and many Edinburgh options are a nightmare for a daily commute. Also neither market is large.

Personally I would stay South of the Tyne as that opens Leeds up as an option which provides a lot of additional options..

[edison]

I reckon working until you are 70 may be a challenge. It depends on your skills and experience obviously but you may face more discrimination as you get into your 60s unless you are more of an interim management type perhaps.

[SueEllen]

So that boils the options down to two questions: what to do with the kids? Childhood in London, or in the suburbs of some satellite town, or in the Northumberland coast. I figured if I lived mid-way between Edinburgh and Newcastle, I could target both job markets on my next contract.

Unless you live in a very poor part of London with no green space within walking distance it doesn't matter.

Your kids want both you and your partner around.

Choose the option where both you and your partner are there everyday to talk to them after school, one of you can take them to school while the other can pick them up, and you aren't too knackered to do interesting things with them on weekends.

In other words choose cities or large towns where you are unlikely to need to do long commutes.....

Also quit worrying and do it.

BTW growing up in London does have one or two advantages. Apart from getting around on your own steam by public transport you can learn enough of a random language which years later means you can grass up Indian nationals who lie to bosses.

[SueEllen]

I reckon working until you are 70 may be a challenge. It depends on your skills and experience obviously but you may face more discrimination as you get into your 60s unless you are more of an interim management type perhaps.

It depends on:
1. How old you look. There are some 60 and 70 year olds around who look in their late 40s and in their 50s. Granted a lot are cycling and running fanatics and also have good genes.
2. Your attitude and how you interact with people younger than you.

Plus no-one is saying he will stay in IT.......

[adam42]

The problem with Northumberland is that you really only have Newcastle and Edinburgh to commute and many Edinburgh options are a nightmare for a daily commute. Also neither market is large.

Personally I would stay South of the Tyne as that opens Leeds up as an option which provides a lot of additional options..

Jobserve shows Edinburgh has a lot more ads than Leeds but thanks for the warning about the Edinburgh locations - I assume you mean it can be a big hike to get to the business from the railway station?

[stek]

Jobserve shows Edinburgh has a lot more ads than Leeds but thanks for the warning about the Edinburgh locations - I assume you mean it can be a big hike to get to the business from the railway station?

Many ads on JS are fake. I've lived and worked in Scotland and the contracting market there is nothing compared to even Manchester, a black hole for contractors.

[adam42]

I reckon working until you are 70 may be a challenge. It depends on your skills and experience obviously but you may face more discrimination as you get into your 60s unless you are more of an interim management type perhaps.

It depends on:
1. How old you look. There are some 60 and 70 year olds around who look in their late 40s and in their 50s. Granted a lot are cycling and running fanatics and also have good genes.
2. Your attitude and how you interact with people younger than you.

Plus no-one is saying he will stay in IT.......

Actually I'm pretty good on the age front. A lot of people claim to be surprised when I say how old I am. Maybe I'm just easily flattered though. And I am hopeless at telling people's ages myself so I naturally just treat everyone as if they were my own age. Often leads to unexpected results with my kids though

I'm definitely not planning on working until I'm 70, but I guess I'd prefer to be coding still than to be that handyman at B&Q. I mentioned being close to 50 and expecting to work for 20 more years so I guess that is where you got 70, but knock off a couple of years from 50 and expect the retirement age to rise to 67 and you almost have 20 years.

Reading other messages on the forum though I now realise when I retire will be totally down to me, or better said, having enough to retire on.

I will be staying in IT for at least 5 years and most likely more. The only option is if my business work rises like a phoenix from the ashes but that depends heavily on finding the time to commit to it and the extra money to pay a programmer to help. So I could easily stay in IT up to retirement. I haven't done the pensions / annuities / savings calculations yet to work out when that might be.

[adam42]

Unless you live in a very poor part of London with no green space within walking distance it doesn't matter.

Your kids want both you and your partner around.

Choose the option where both you and your partner are there everyday to talk to them after school, one of you can take them to school while the other can pick them up, and you aren't too knackered to do interesting things with them on weekends.

In other words choose cities or large towns where you are unlikely to need to do long commutes.....

Also quit worrying and do it.

Thanks for straight-up advice! But I am allowed to worry about it until Tuesday afternoon and then the recruitment consultants will turn nasty. Actually I am closer to an answer now, partly thanks to your advice. My personal preference is to go for the remote village with railway station on the coast, and that was colouring my judgement quite strongly. As you can imagine though there are more factors involved than I have gone into here. Suffice it to say unless I get an undeniably positive decision from my partner in favour of moving out of London then it's not going to happen, even if that would be undeniably the best option for the kids.

BTW growing up in London does have one or two advantages. Apart from getting around on your own steam by public transport you can learn enough of a random language which years later means you can grass up Indian nationals who lie to bosses.

The urban vs rural upbringing debate is a big one online and definitely not settled, as you point out.

I would never grass someone up as a matter of principle! How dare you!