Get a real job?

[expat]

How long can the low rates be substained. Sure the cheap indian comes here thinking £200 a day is a lot of money. Then he realises the hell hole he has to live in when he wants to bring his wife over and the cost of food, a car, a holiday back home etc etc, then the rate is not so attractive.

I don't think so: there is an effectively endless supply of competent Indian programmers willing to work here on low rates, stay in a very cheap flatshare, and save all their money for when they go back home.

[Rantor]

Quite so, Francko, but actually I do want to live in England, that is the problem. In former times I would be happy to go wherever the work was. Now I want to live in England, specifically, for personal reasons, and I'm finding it hard-to-impossible to find work here.

Hi Expat.

Sorry to hear see your woes building up. The weird thing is, there really has been less Siebel stuff in the UK than in Europe since 2001/2002 other than the big public sector projects, but that is mostly down to most of the dev being done by Indian companies – I can’t think of one new private sector project in Britain within the last 5 yrs that has not been configured in Bangalore. I had a call from a pimp yesterday who told me that uk rates for Siebel and SAP were at their lowest ever.

In terms of work, there are still requirements coming up in euroland but a lot of these are being filled by the consultancies internally.

License sales to the finance sector have tanked and a lot of projects have been canned hence the big integrators have busy benches. On the plus side, pharma and telcos are doing ok plus the big semi-puplic sector organisations that need to start competing fro work.

I got into Siebel by accident in 1998 ‘for a few months – it’ll never catch on” and I wrongly called time on it on several occasions. It is indeed Oracles main offering and there isn’t anything that will replace it in the foreseeable future.

How long can you hold out?

[TimberWolf]

I'm a contractor, not a conman

That's what did me in.

[expat]

....
I got into Siebel by accident in 1998 ‘for a few months – it’ll never catch on” and I wrongly called time on it on several occasions. It is indeed Oracles main offering and there isn’t anything that will replace it in the foreseeable future.

How long can you hold out?

Yeah, me too: into it by accident round about then. Your analysis of why there is no Siebel contract work in the UK seems spot on. OTOH as long as I am prepared to travel to work, it doesn't seem to me to make much sense to look for some other area of work.

But even in Europe, as you say a lot of vacancies are being filled internally. Half my contracts have been with or via IBM, and IBM everywhere is now "internal only" except in special cases (I have heard of such cases but not managed to become one).

Thanks for the analysis. BTW I have since February only had 2 prospects get me as far as talking to anyone farther down the line than my own pimp: both in France. I wonder if the French's famous distaste for people who don't speak fluent French may turn out to be my saviour? Subcontinentals are not making big inroads there.

How long can I hold out? About another month in good shape; or until about the end of the year but by then I really need a contract to catch up again.