Daily Rates

[Dow Jones]

Reality check

I always laugh when I read 'threats' about walking out on a contract for the sake of a few pounds that the person thinks is 'worthy of'. You are worth as much as the client is prepared to pay for you and occasionally (on the bench) =
£ 0
I've worked with some contractors that were reminiscent of past glories - and rates. In general, you are worth as much as your last contract.

[rootsnall]

I'd suggest you're doing something wrong then...

In my game rates are about 20% less than 10 years ago, back then it was a mega wave, or a toot toot toot toot toot toot !!!!!!!!

[Jubber]

I always laugh when I read 'threats' about walking out on a contract for the sake of a few pounds that the person thinks is 'worthy of'. You are worth as much as the client is prepared to pay for you and occasionally (on the bench) =
£ 0
I've worked with some contractors that were reminiscent of past glories - and rates. In general, you are worth as much as your last contract.

Very true - back in my impetuous youth I spent quite a lot of days on the bench scoffing at lower rates as my meagre reserves ran dry, rather than getting stuck into the 'pound an hour' stuff. Arrogance kept me in debt for quite a while.

[thunderlizard]

Toads

Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life?
Can’t I use my wit as a pitchfork
And drive the brute off?

Six days of the week it soils
With its sickening poison -
Just for paying a few bills!
That’s out of proportion.

Lots of folk live on their wits:
Lecturers, lispers,
Losels, loblolly-men, louts-
They don’t end as paupers;

Lots of folk live up lanes
With fires in a bucket,
Eat windfalls and tinned sardines-
They seem to like it.

Their nippers have got bare feet,
Their unspeakable wives
Are skinny as whippets - and yet
No one actually starves.

Ah, were I courageous enough
To shout, Stuff your pension!
But I know, all too well, that’s the stuff
That dreams are made on:

For something sufficiently toad-like
Squats in me, too;
Its hunkers are heavy as hard luck,
And cold as snow,

And will never allow me to blarney
My way of getting
The fame and the girl and the money
All at one sitting.

I don’t say, one bodies the other
One’s spiritual truth;
But I do say it’s hard to lose either,
When you have both.

— Philip Larkin

[dude69]

I'm taking this approach - there aren't to many banks upgrading their core banking application at the moment, and those that I know of are are in Belgium or Kiev.

There is ALWAYS ALWAYS a market for people in finance. It's just at the moment supply exceeds demand, so you have to be good to get a gig.

[bobhope]

I have finally increased my rate to (just) more than my one in 2000. Of course it helps that the pound has dropped 20% against euroland.

Of course, with inflation, it's still 30% ish down from the toot toot days.

Will we ever see those days again is what I ask myself?

[Moscow Mule]

There is ALWAYS ALWAYS a market for people in finance. It's just at the moment supply exceeds demand, so you have to be good to get a gig.

Indeed. However, there's a need to be pragmatic in this climate. I was offered a 3 month gig at an IB (repeat business) as I was about to renew this one. I took the decision to stay here as it looks like it could run and run, where the IB was definitely 3 months.

[milanbenes]

look lads, you need to get into .Net

Milan.

[Moscow Mule]

look lads, you need to get into .Net

Milan.

That's my plan b

[rootsnall]

look lads, you need to get into .Net

Milan.

It's booming !

It really is booming, my instincts ( and posts on here ) point to doom but it is defo boom at the moment.