Getting wobbles at 45

[tazdevil]

Is 52 waaay behind the curve? Thanks for you’re comments, I realise my mistakes and now working hard to address the issue. I am now building a war chest and putting decent money into pension so have made serious changes. The original question was more about longevity as a contractor into late 50s, what’s older contractors experience of getting roles when older. Surely not all subbies manage to retire at 55.

Unless you're good at networking, have a desirable skill set and constantly work to keep things that way forget the idea of continued contracting in the clover You need to parlay your skills into being a business selling services other than paid by the hour BOS type of work. Get collaborating and finding ways of taking on contracts for your product rather than your time. Success in life is normally about long term building rather than short term windfall so don't expect a change of direction to bring rewards quickly and in a lot of cases at all!

[coxy]

My skills are pretty decent and have a good network of happy clients. Currently working with several successful subbies who are mid 50s but was wanting to get the wider picture of contracting into late 50s from the perspective of people who are in that group contracting now.

[vetran]

Nah. It was already huge. (The house I mean).

In your 30s?

We had a nice size house in a mediocre area in our 30s but now we have a huge house in a very decent area two moves later. But we paid off the first in our 30s.

[hobnob]

The original question was more about longevity as a contractor into late 50s, what’s older contractors experience of getting roles when older.

I think there will be 2 potential issues:
a) Age discrimination.
b) Technical skills.

For point a, I'm a similar age to you, so I can't speak from personal experience. I know there are some people here who've retired, but I don't know how old they were at that point (i.e. whether they'd made a fortune and retired early).

For point b, you said that you're a software engineer. Are you doing hands on programming, or are you dealing more with test coverage etc? Basically, how much time do you need to put in to keep your skills up to date? As you get older, are you still happy to study at evenings/weekends? The risk would be that you have a lot of experience with desktop development (for example), but then you find that all the clients are looking for serverless code (e.g. AWS Lambda or Azure functions).

(There are other potential issues which affect all contractors, e.g. offshoring, but I've focussed on the issues which are age related.)

[northernladuk]

My skills are pretty decent and have a good network of happy clients. Currently working with several successful subbies who are mid 50s but was wanting to get the wider picture of contracting into late 50s from the perspective of people who are in that group contracting now.

You are in a pretty difficult situation and asking us about the following risks that my occur in the next 10 to 15 years

A) Being discriminated because of your age
B) Burning out well before 55 or 60
C) You having health problems
D) Your partner having health problems
E) General issues with contracting that may affect your end to end income at current levels
F) Your skills still being current in 15 years and your drive to keep up with them

From what I've seen from our esteemed posters here nearly all of them have taken their foot off the pedal in their mid to late 50's and either gone perm or got side work on. Most notably is Cojak, Mudskipper and LadyMuck but they all look like in their mid 40's so maybe not the best examples. We only know what they are doing as they've announced it on here so no idea how many of us are mid 50's onwards and still contracting.

I'm 52 and am starting to find it a bit of a grind so will be looking to go perm in a cushy number I like soon. Am loving my current client but just feel a few years off finishing yet but I'm gonna have a tough decision at the end of this gig (assuming their is a perm role).

All that said I'm not sure what the point of the question is as you've no other choice. What if we tell you there is no chance you will be able to guaranteed this level of income up past 55? What will change?

[NotAllThere]

In your 30s?

Yes. Pre-2000 was a good time. High rates, no IR35.

[coxy]

What will change?

fair point, gotta work regardless, good or bad rate.

[Whorty]

Is 52 waaay behind the curve? Thanks for you’re comments, I realise my mistakes and now working hard to address the issue. I am now building a war chest and putting decent money into pension so have made serious changes. The original question was more about longevity as a contractor into late 50s, what’s older contractors experience of getting roles when older. Surely not all subbies manage to retire at 55.

If you have little to no pension by 52, and no other 'assets' (you have a mortgage on the house so you don't own it yet so it's only partly an asset, and even if it was paid off you still need somewhere to live) then yes 52 is behind the curve to start saving for your retirement.

If you retire in your 60's, with the average age of death in the UK for a man, you'll be 20 years retired and living on the 'warchest' you have built up (whether that be pension, other savings, downsizing house and releasing some equity). Assuming you'll need £30k a year after tax (and ignoring inflation and keeping it really simple), and taking into account the £8k government pension, you'll need over £400,000 in cash when you get to retirement to cover you.

As a minimum.

If you don't have much today put away, that means for the next 15 years you're going to have to save, net, £30-£40k every year until retirement at 65 ish.

This is all back of a fag packet, very simple rough and ready numbers, but the magnitude of the savings deficit facing you is pretty clear.

And this at a time when most people are looking to go part time, move into easier roles, less stress etc. Oh, and this assumes you or your good lady don't get a serious illness that prevents working or drains your savings.

The best thing you can do is be honest with yourself, work out what your retirement spend might look like (think 60% of what you spend today), multiply that by 20 years, and that's roughly the war chest you'll need as a minimum to keep a lifestyle similar to what you have today when you retire.

[coxy]

And this at a time when most people are looking to go part time, move into easier roles, less stress etc.

Part time at 45, seems very young ?

[Whorty]

Part time at 45, seems very young ?

As contractors, going part time at 45 is not unheard of. Work 6 months, doss for 6 months.

No, 52 when you said you'd be paying off your mortgage and ramping up pension contributions.

But saying that, I went part time at 46 as my late wife needed 24 hour care and I took on that role until I lost her Dec 2020. I only went back to work properly Oct 2021 (at 51).

Life has a way of throwing curve balls unfortunately.

My wife was diagnosed with her illness aged 25, so we had quite a few years to plan for the time I'd need to cut down work and be a carer. Many don't and yet I know a lot of younger widows now faced with that same scenario. So don't assume you'll keep your perfect health until 65 when you retire, and can earn the same decent contractor rates all the way through, as that may be a bad assumption.

And with your wife not earning much, what happens if you get ill. How will she manage? At the very least get yourself life insurance if you haven't already.