Trumped to a PHP contract by cheapskate who accepted £80 per day!

[Spacecadet]

The same way people can afford to work for minimum wage in Tesco.

Please stop pretending that it's impossible to live off 20 grand a year. About half the population manage to do so, so it must be posible.

tim

If living means only 1 range rover then please kill me now

- Churchill

[d000hg]

The same way people can afford to work for minimum wage in Tesco.

Please stop pretending that it's impossible to live off 20 grand a year. About half the population manage to do so, so it must be posible.

tim

Or even 15K...

[TheFaQQer]

I don't flipping believe it! I was a shoe-in for a PHP contract paying £240 per day, which is pretty derisory in itself.

But today the agent rang to say the client had taken someone else, from another agency, who had accepted a daily rate of £80! FFS - That's almost the minimum wage!

Even the agent was gobsmacked, and in fairness warned the client in so many words that the monkey they had taken on was probably barely toilet trained let alone qualified to tap out PHP.

But it goes to show how the market is becoming. She said rates in PHP were sinking across the board, and most I have seen in recent days are offering at most £220 per day. Luckily I also have perl and .Net, but there are hardly any perl contracts around at the moment.

I'm currently feeling as gloomy as the pooch in my avatar.

Give it till January and the client will realize their mistake.

My first "contract" was writing reports in Crystal Reports for ICI during my Christmas holiday from uni at £100 a day, so £80 a day is ridiculous.

[bogeyman]

£80 per day for PHP, jesus how on earth do such niche markets command such a high rate.

OP get yourself into a proper contractor market.

PHP is hardly a niche is it?

It's the VB and 'glue' of the Internet (that and Javascript). It holds tons of stuff together and is utterly ubiquitous. Your Internet experience would not be what it is without PHP. A niche market? No!

The problem is that if you only know PHP, you are up against millions of bedroom web-jockeys who will accept absurdly low rates and be damned grateful for them

[OwlHoot]

.. The problem is that if you only know PHP, you are up against millions of bedroom web-jockeys who will accept absurdly low rates and be damned grateful for them

Absolutely, and due to the widespread use of PHP, especially in small companies, I'm convinced now (from recent experience) that pimps are using PHP contract adverts more than any other skill for lead fishing.

[sappatz]

Php

maybe PHP is no contractor skill after all

[gingerjedi]

maybe PHP is no contractor skill after all

Eh? Contractors offer flexability not different skills.

[milanbenes]

hmmm, php....

Personal Home Pages


. download it from the internet

. all answers to problems are on the internet

. tons of coding examples on the internet

. very easy to 'pick-up' because it keeps everything simple, eg
no differentiation between, strings, int, date etc

. you can pick it up in about a week

as the man said, not really a skill or shall we say, product, for
contractors

consequently low rates and tons of competition

Milan.

[bobhope]

What you want is something proprietary, with high barriers to entry, thus keeping rates high(ish). Something beginning with S maybe?

[EternalOptimist]

£80 per day ?
Maybe it's somebody working a 'double header'. i.e. they are managing two contracts at the same time