How much is a fully remote role worth to you?

[TheDude]

When I get contacted for a role, the first thing I want to know about is the working arrangements. If the client is adamant to have me in the office 1-2 days a week, I want £100 per day more.

Having said that, I would never commute more than 2 days a week and I would never commute for longer than 1.5hr one way so I don't even want to discuss those roles.

I just turned down £100pd less to go fully remote.

I am already starting to regret it.

[edison]

I just turned down £100pd less to go fully remote.

I am already starting to regret it.

Why the regret?

[Protagoras]

There's no rate I would accept in exchange for a tulipty commute, but I have no problem with visiting a client site as needed.

+1
Especially where the client site is somewhere interesting, but these days I look to stay overnight for any client site visits.
No on-the-day return travel, but then I'm not 'handy' for any major cities.

[TheDude]

Why the regret?

I was offered £100 a day less than my current role to be fully remote and my mercenary contractor brain couldn't take that sort of hit.

If I was rational I would have realised that maybe an extra grand a month net isn't worth the grief of a commute and micromanagement.

[ChimpMaster]

The problem is not the on-site work. The problem is the micro-manager. It would take a heap load of £ for me to work with such a person.

[ChimpMaster]

I just turned down £100pd less to go fully remote.

I am already starting to regret it.

You said 10% in your initial post, so that means you're on around £1k a day? For these higher rates you have to put up with a bit of cr@p at some point.

[d000hg]

The problem is not the on-site work. The problem is the micro-manager. It would take a heap load of £ for me to work with such a person.

Yeah and I don't really see that being solved by WFH?

[PCTNN]

Yeah and I don't really see that being solved by WFH?

True. In a permie job I once had a nightmare manager based in another office and she was still pestering me with meeting requests just to "catch up" and for me to update her on what I had been doing that day. Hated it and left within a few months. The office was great though, free lunches 2 days a week, free fruit, sodas and coffees.

[northernladuk]

There's no rate I would accept in exchange for a tulipty commute, but I have no problem with visiting a client site as needed. In reality, that almost never happens because I don't work with UK clients anymore. That said, WFH can be easily oversold - the interaction with people is worth something. Of course, if there's no interaction and you're sitting in a cubicle engaged in virtual meetings with client bods from other client sites, then it's worth nothing. In short, it depends (except for the commuting part).

Totally this. To be honest I still see remote as a benefit and not the norm like most seem to. I actually like working away in the week and did so for nearly three years up to the pandemic. Stay somewhere nice, SWMBO came to see me, made a good weekend of it and actually helped us so don't mind staying away. If I can WFH a few days then happy days. I'm pulling a rate of over 100k a year which I'm forever thankful of so will pull my weight for that type of money. Also consider it's short term. So I do it for 3, 6, 12 months. As soon as I leave the gig it's ancient history and I've got 100k from it. No biggie.

I also believe interaction is important and really enjoying going in to my client two days a week at the moment. If they mandated more I wouldn't bat an eyelid. Even if a gig was remote but commutable I'd be asking to go in from time to time. I can do business and relate with my client better but then I work in service so this interaction is more important than a coder.

Maybe I'm just not as good as some people on here and have the opportunities that I could get shirty of WFH but for me I'd just look at each gig on it's merits and decide. WFH is only a bonus because I can include gigs I wouldn't normally commute to, I don't see WFH as the norm. For me there are a lot more factors to consider before WFH becomes a sticking point and factors in to taking the gig or not.

[Zigenare]

After 12 months with CientCo in a solely WFH role I recently extended my contract and increased my daily rate by 20% due to a request to provide on site development support for a maximum of 2 days per week. ClientCo is 175 miles from my home office and is a tulipty commute. If ClientCo wishes to increase on site support it will cost them an additional 10% rate increase per additional day - whether on site or not.

Hopefully this will dissuade them from wanting me on site full time. That and my BO!