Contractor UK Bulletin Board - Forums https://forums.contractoruk.com/ vBulletin Forums en Wed, 10 Jun 2026 07:13:58 GMT vBulletin 60 images/misc/rss.png Contractor UK Bulletin Board - Forums https://forums.contractoruk.com/ LLM Advice please https://forums.contractoruk.com/technical/151256-llm-advice-please.html Tue, 09 Jun 2026 20:37:46 GMT Technical courtg9000 https://forums.contractoruk.com/technical/151256-llm-advice-please.html Monday Links from the Gap Between Teams Meetings vol. DCCCLVIII https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151255-monday-links-from-the-gap-between-teams-meetings-vol-dccclviii.html Mon, 08 Jun 2026 13:02:31 GMT Late today because I’ve had an extremely busy morning chasing an urgent bug. Weird thing is, I can’t see how it never happened before because if my theory is correct, the function in question has been wrong for over two years :bang: You Can Run...
  • You Can Run - ”When their parents ripped two young sisters from their privileged lives, gave them fake names, and took them on the lam, they thought it was because their father was in trouble with the IRS. It would be years before they learned the truth about his life of crime.” Being a fugitive was much easier before we had all this technology
  • Study Shows Octopuses’ Impressive Ability to Navigate Space - ”Researchers demonstrate invertebrates can solve a spatial problem using a mirror.” Clever people, those cephalopods. The full paper is online: Octopus bimaculoides can learn to utilize a mirror to localize a reward outside the line of sight
  • Singularities inside black holes are truly unavoidable - Ethan Siegel explains why the impossible has to happen inside a black hole: ”Yes, ‘the laws of physics break down’ at singularities. But relativity itself would have to be wrong for black holes to not possess them.”
  • ‘Your brain isn’t fully formed until you’re 25’: A neuroscientist demolishes the greatest mind myth - Turns out the popular belief is just as wrong as the “only use 10%” thing: ”This logic has now formed the basis of official government advice, sentencing, and more. The only problem with this fact is… it’s not a fact. Never has been. No matter how many TikTokers insist otherwise.”
  • A Zipper Patent Sat in a Garage for 40 Years. Now It’s Real. - ”Back in 1985, an electrical engineer at Polaroid named Bill Freeman had an idea for a three-sided zipper. Not a novelty item, not a quirky art piece, but a genuinely functional fastener capable of switching objects between soft, floppy states and rigid, load-bearing structures.” This looks like a rather clever and useful thing
  • Queen Mary – California - An account of a stay aboard the retired ocean liner: ”By the mid 1960’s the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth were being left behind in the shadow of the new jet age… As soon as we stepped on board it was like we had travelled back in time.”
  • the ice supply, the thank-you note, and other small things that almost took down a company - People do extremely stupid things: ”They lost out on literally millions of dollars in legal fees and a partner was disbarred over an unjustified $5,000 bill to the client… all the lawyers on the file, including the partner in charge of her case, billed her 15 minutes of their regular hourly rate to read her thank-you note that she sent after getting the final bill.”
  • The Detective Who Investigated Shakespeare's Grave Robbery - ”A Scotland Yard spycatcher investigates Shakespeare's skull theft AND the Whitechapel Murders.” The life of Edwin Thomas Woodhall, who also served in Military Intelligence in the Great War
  • Powering up a module from the IBM 604: an electronic calculator from 1948 - Ken Shirriff investigates another piece of computing history: ”Since it used vacuum tubes, it was much more powerful than electromechanical equipment; it could do 60 operations in under a second, including multiplication and division. As a result, the IBM 604 became very popular, with over 5600 units produced. Moreover, IBM's experience with electronics in the 604 led to the success of its vacuum-tube computers in the 1950s.”
  • Courtroom Sketches of Ida Libby Dengrove - ”Collection of 6224 sketches, mainly courtroom sketches of criminal and civil trials around New York City, drawn by Ida Libby Dengrove.” Dengrove worked on many of the most high profile cases of the 1970s onwards, including Son of Sam, and John Hinckley’s trial for shooting Reagan, shown here.

Happy invoicing! ]]> General NickFitz https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151255-monday-links-from-the-gap-between-teams-meetings-vol-dccclviii.html Built an AI job board for IT contractors - feedback welcome https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151250-built-an-ai-job-board-for-it-contractors-feedback-welcome.html Thu, 04 Jun 2026 12:12:08 GMT I'm a full stack contractor who got fed up with traditional job sites, so I built something.

ContractorGig - every job has AI-extracted IR35 status with a confidence score and evidence quote from the actual JD. Also includes AI matching, CV tailoring, rate intelligence showing live market rates by tech stack, and auto-apply for high-match roles.

UK IT contracts only for now. Live at https://contractorgig.com

Feedback welcome.
]]> General contractorgig https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151250-built-an-ai-job-board-for-it-contractors-feedback-welcome.html MVL Online https://forums.contractoruk.com/accounting-legal/151249-mvl-online.html Thu, 04 Jun 2026 10:21:27 GMT
David's older than me, and has been discussing retirement for a while. I'm not an insolvency practitioner (IP), hence couldn't run it without another IP involved. So we've been looking at options to secure the business's future.

As of Monday 1 June, the business has legally been sold to liquidator firm BTG. The underlying brand/business "MVL Online" will continue largely as is. The new structure will still involve the same client facing team (myself and some of the staff at Maslins), but a different IP legally taking on the appointments, and some other tweaks behind the scenes. The client experience should remain the same.]]> Accounting / Legal Maslins https://forums.contractoruk.com/accounting-legal/151249-mvl-online.html Software Security Specialist https://forums.contractoruk.com/business-contracts/151248-software-security-specialist.html Thu, 04 Jun 2026 09:31:26 GMT
It's about supporting advanced software development within an innovative industrial technology environment. This is a consulting assignment within a forward-thinking Intelligent Manufacturing IT department, working with modern CAD/CAM software solutions.

Act as a key advisor and hands-on expert in product cybersecurity, guiding development teams in building secure, compliant, and resilient software products.

Implement a Secure Software Development Lifecycle (SSDL) aligned with international standards and regulatory requirements.

Must haves:

Experience in software security and product cyber security
IEC 62443-4-1 and the EU Cyber Resilience Act
Experience working with agile dev teams

CSSLP certification is a strong nice to have.

This can be worked fully remote, 35 hours/week.]]> Business / Contracts m0n1k3r https://forums.contractoruk.com/business-contracts/151248-software-security-specialist.html Nationwide Building Society House Price Index May 26 https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151246-nationwide-building-society-house-price-index-may-26-a.html Wed, 03 Jun 2026 12:11:20 GMT Key Points: UK annual house price growth slowed to 1.7% in May, from 3.0% in April House prices were down 0.6% month on month Full report here: https://www.nationwide.co.uk/media/hpi/resources/may-2026-2
  • UK annual house price growth slowed to 1.7% in May, from 3.0% in April
  • House prices were down 0.6% month on month

    • Full report here:

    https://www.nationwide.co.uk/media/h...ces/may-2026-2
    ]]>     General Martin@AS Financial https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151246-nationwide-building-society-house-price-index-may-26-a.html     New contract. need a new umbrella https://forums.contractoruk.com/umbrella-companies/151244-new-contract-need-a-new-umbrella.html Tue, 02 Jun 2026 13:26:46 GMT Hi, On the market for a new umbrella as I was outside IR35 for my latest gig. I need one that allows salary sacrifice into a SIPP (interactive investors), preferably, with no delay. was leaning for Clarity but now that I see Lucy has left, not sure. Thanks all
    On the market for a new umbrella as I was outside IR35 for my latest gig.

    I need one that allows salary sacrifice into a SIPP (interactive investors), preferably, with no delay.

    was leaning for Clarity but now that I see Lucy has left, not sure.

    Thanks all

    ]]>     Umbrella Companies passerby https://forums.contractoruk.com/umbrella-companies/151244-new-contract-need-a-new-umbrella.html     What was going on, on 29 May? https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151243-what-was-going-on-on-29-may.html Mon, 01 Jun 2026 14:18:04 GMT
    Most users ever online was 111,197 at 13:30 on 29 May 2026.
    That's a lot of people spending their lunch break here ]]>     General ladymuck https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151243-what-was-going-on-on-29-may.html     Monday Links from the Gap Between Teams Meetings vol. DCCCLVII https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151242-monday-links-from-the-gap-between-teams-meetings-vol-dccclvii.html Mon, 01 Jun 2026 11:38:57 GMT Now the heatwave is over, we can carry on living life vicariously through the World Wide Web as we did during it :rolleyes: The Grate Cheese Robbery (https://longreads.com/2026/05/28/the-cheese-theft-food-crime/) - Organised crime is coming for your cheese: ”It wasn’t beyond the realms of...
    • The Grate Cheese Robbery - Organised crime is coming for your cheese: ”It wasn’t beyond the realms of belief when a big, fat order came in for artisanal cheddar in 2024. A French supermarket wanted to purchase 950 truckles of the stuff, an order worth around $400,000… On October 14, 2024, the cheese was collected, just like it was supposed to be. But neither the cheese nor the buyer was ever seen again. The 950 truckles—roughly the weight of a fully grown whale shark—disappeared without a trace.”
    • Key Chemistry Question Answered, No Quantum Computer Required - Chemists keeping it real: ”Do we need quantum computers to fully understand complex chemical reactions? A new result, decades in the making, shows the surprising power of ordinary ‘classical’ machines.”
    • The canary resuscitator - The Science and Industry Museum explains that canaries in coal mines weren’t sacrificial lambs: ”The circular door would be kept open and had a grill to prevent the canary escaping. Once the canary showed signs of carbon monoxide poisoning the door would be closed and a valve opened, allowing oxygen from the tank on top to be released and revive the canary.”
    • How The Heck Do Traffic Lights Work? - ”How Victorian railway semaphores evolved into modern traffic systems.” I once had occasion to dip into a 1970s book on Traffic Engineering, though I can’t remember now whether two of the key variables for traffic lights were “minimum green time” and “maximum red time” or the other way around
    • Current Rothko - Let this site use your location, or search for one, and it will show you a Rothko painting that reflects your current weather conditions. Where I am, right now is ”Untitled Brown and Gray” which sounds about right.
    • The 40 Most Rage-Inducing Problems in Tech - ”The bugs, broken apps, and nightmare customer-service bots we can’t escape, presented as a blessed and sacred addendum to Pope Leo XIV’s new encyclical on AI.” Brian Phillips crowdsourced these annoyances on BlueSky last week, and there are plenty more in the thread and quote posts that didn’t make the cut
    • Fifty years ago, Hunter Davies discovered Beryl Cook. Now, on her centenary, he finds he owns her long-lost self-portrait - The retired journalist and editor on the artist who enjoyed huge popularity a few decades ago: ”The art editor flicked through them on his lightbox… I went back to my desk, furious. I had bowed to the art department’s visual wisdom for two years, as I know bugger all about photography and design. This time, though, I said, ‘Hard cheese. I am the editor of this mag. We are using them in the next edition.’”
    • Keywords - ”Discover today’s five connected words.” This simple game by Dave “Bagpuss” Forsey can be quite infuriating, so I don’t see why you shouldn’t suffer along with me
    • Microcode inside the Intel 8087 floating-point chip: register exchange - Ken Shirriff continues his exploration of the Intel floating point coprocessor: ”In this post, I take a close look at the microcode for one of the 8087's instructions—FXCH—and explain how the microcode works. The FXCH (Floating-point Exchange) instruction exchanges two floating-point registers. You might expect this instruction to be trivial, but there's more going on than you might expect; the microcode uses 14 micro-instructions to implement the exchange instruction.”
    • Budapest Courtyards - ”Between 2014 and 2016, we visited 400 of the more than 4,000 internal courtyards in Budapest. Their large number and variety of styles incorporating different facets of classicism and modernity make them a remarkable architectural phenomenon — a charming second city within the city.” Photos by Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre

    Happy invoicing! ]]>     General NickFitz https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151242-monday-links-from-the-gap-between-teams-meetings-vol-dccclvii.html     Built an AI job board for IT contractors - feedback welcome https://forums.contractoruk.com/business-contracts/151241-built-an-ai-job-board-for-it-contractors-feedback-welcome.html Sat, 30 May 2026 10:23:15 GMT I'm a full stack contractor who got fed up with traditional job sites, so I built something.

    ContractorGig - every job has AI-extracted IR35 status with a confidence score and evidence quote from the actual JD. Also does AI matching, CV tailoring, and a free Rate Intel tool showing live market rates by tech stack.

    UK IT contracts only for now. Live at contractorgig.com.

    Feedback welcome.
    ]]>     Business / Contracts contractorgig https://forums.contractoruk.com/business-contracts/151241-built-an-ai-job-board-for-it-contractors-feedback-welcome.html     Sense-checking my financial/Ltd company thinking! https://forums.contractoruk.com/accounting-legal/151240-sense-checking-my-financial-ltd-company-thinking.html Fri, 29 May 2026 20:21:52 GMT
    Hugely appreciate all of the expertise on this forum. Long time reader, first time poster. Just keen to make sure I've got the below correct.

    I started contracting in January 2026, and have a Limited Company setup. I have the following income streams:
    • A monthly 'salary' from a US-based client of up to £6,000 per month. This should be just under £50,000 by the end of the tax year as I will be stopping it in September.
    • A number of other contracts which total around £64,000.
    • Separately, my wife has also started being self-employed and invoices around £4,000 per month.
    I have a few questions or ideas that I'd appreciate sense-checking around:
    1. Can my wife join my Ltd company and put her income under it? Her client is fine to 'pay' my company - it's quick to get setup in their system.
    2. For the £64,000 - can I put £60,000 of this into my SIPP, via AJ Bell?
    3. For the salary, I'm worried about this being seen as disguised employment. Should I be setting up a payroll for myself, or is just keeping c.£8,000 to one side to pay HMRC at the end of the tax year fine? I'm worried about ensuring I'm paying National Insurance correctly.
    4. For the salary, I was planning on putting this as a sole trader submission to HMRC and not via my Limited Company. Or would it make more sense to put this into the company?
    I have an accountant from previous years of maintaining a very low-earning Ltd company, but will be looking for a new one I think - but just keen to get my understanding straight first.

    Thank you...!]]>     Accounting / Legal LondonContracting https://forums.contractoruk.com/accounting-legal/151240-sense-checking-my-financial-ltd-company-thinking.html     <![CDATA[Why can't recruitment agents read?]]> https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151239-why-can-t-recruitment-agents-read.html Fri, 29 May 2026 15:57:32 GMT Just received the below via LinkedIn. The only thing they got correct was my name and my current client. My current role has nothing to do with those technologies and nothing in my historical experience mentions them either. I replied thanking them for the approach and highlighting I had none of...
    I replied thanking them for the approach and highlighting I had none of the required experience saying, "I'm not sure what search terms you used but they're not giving you very good results".



    I’m reaching out as your background at [CLIENT NAME REDACTED] really stood out to me. I’m currently supporting a large-scale, business-critical remote access programme with a leading UK retailer, and your experience looks highly aligned with what they need at this stage.

    This is a Business Analyst role focused on a major transformation across corporate, retail, and operational technology environments - working with technologies like Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD), Zscaler, and IoT/OT.

    Details:
    £700 P/D (Inside IR 35)
    Hybrid position (3 days P/W on-site)
    3-6 Month contract opportunity (initially)
    If anyone thinks this is a real gig and wants a crack at it, let me know, and you can see if the numpty who sent this is a real boy or an AI bot.]]>     General ladymuck https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151239-why-can-t-recruitment-agents-read.html     Sizewell C, Hinkley Point C, EDF Energy https://forums.contractoruk.com/business-contracts/151238-sizewell-c-hinkley-point-c-edf-energy.html Fri, 29 May 2026 13:40:33 GMT
    Before the call the contractors checked with other contracts at the sites and most have had identical calls, with the ones who haven't receiving the news after calling up their consultancies and agencies to see if they're affected.

    From speaking to the two consultancy partners at different consultancies this is likely to affected thousands of contractors of many professions. Posting here to get feedback from anybody affected and to see if anybody is some how not affected and able to remain outside IR35.]]>     Business / Contracts agentzero https://forums.contractoruk.com/business-contracts/151238-sizewell-c-hinkley-point-c-edf-energy.html     superlooper https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151237-superlooper.html Fri, 29 May 2026 08:55:37 GMT get your own personal supercomputer!! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx211w5gwr7o
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx211w5gwr7o]]>     General sadkingbilly https://forums.contractoruk.com/general/151237-superlooper.html     McCann Review Refunds https://forums.contractoruk.com/hmrc-scheme-enquiries/151236-mccann-review-refunds.html Thu, 28 May 2026 14:50:41 GMT So, called HMRC back in March 2026, and few chases since to ask about reworking TTP based on new rules. I settled back in 2020 and wanted to know if i can access the new McCann terms. Its at least a 25% saving for me against old terms. Zero surprise, absolutely not was the message this...
    I settled back in 2020 and wanted to know if i can access the new McCann terms. Its at least a 25% saving for me against old terms.

    Zero surprise, absolutely not was the message this week. No way for me to access McCann terms. The guy agreed it was not fair at all, but nothing he could do. I said the message from HMRC then is to never settle, burn everything sent to me, and wait for better terms, he said he couldn't 'officially comment'. If I had not paid, why would I take the McCann terms, probably be something even better in a few years time.

    Only options are:
    • Formal complaint to HMRC (at least its logged, but expect zero)
    • Write to MP (not sure what good that will do in honesty, but again at least logged)
    • I asked what happens if i stop paying current TTP arrangements, he was clear I would go to HMRC Debt Management. I asked would they work out a new plan based on the terms? He did not know and all very unclear, though seems a high risk approach as I'm guessing all sorts of unwanted consequences are possible.
    Not sure what other options there are, ideas welcome. Open to trying to put a group together if others are interested, maybe more voices is better than one.



    ]]>     HMRC Scheme Enquiries Keanu2020 https://forums.contractoruk.com/hmrc-scheme-enquiries/151236-mccann-review-refunds.html