Just Left 60K Permie Job To Contract At 400 Per Day - Am I mad

[Gonzo]

Bad assumption. You will need some time off. Also what about Christmas, BAnk Holidays...?

The correct calculation is no more than 240 chargeable days a year at £400 a day which gives £96k. Take out some working expenses and professional fees, say £5k a year. Allow something for health care, SSP cover, PEI, PI and pension planning - say another £1k a month minimum. Take off PAYE and NICs, an absolute minimum of £5800, rather more if your pay more than the mimimum salary or get into higher rate. So your £96k is now £79k. Pay 21% CT on that leaves you with £62k. Bearing in mind you now have to fund a heap of minor things you get for free as an employee, you're not that much better off, are you? Then they cancel the contract and you're on the bench for two months...

What about bench time?

240 days is an absolute maximum but I never billed more than about 220 days per year and that was when I was in contract for the whole twelve months.

I am not in the market any more but am sure that the number of days that I would have been billing this year would have been much, much lower than 240.

The £600 per day that I quoted was probably too high what I am surprised about is that noone picked me up on my gig-ending rate negotiation strategy.

Sometimes playing hardball is what you have to do but you do need to make sure you know that the agent's cut is and whether or not there is room to move before you try it.

[Fred Bloggs]

The most important statistic you forgot to mention was your daily rate

Is this on 400 per day?

I'm hourly paid and that's based on £45/hr. My best expectation as a staff guy would be ~£45k a year for the same job.

[joey122]

I'm hourly paid and that's based on £45/hr. My best expectation as a staff guy would be ~£45k a year for the same job.

So based on this someone on 60K needs to earn 600 per day?

And someone on 80K , 800 per day

[BolshieBastard]

Title says it all.

I have just resigned to do a contracting job at 400 per day..

My permie job sucked big time and I was not getting any of the exposure I wanted.

I work in finance in London

Someone tell me I am not mad???

Yep! ******* more crackers than crawfords!

[Stan.goodvibes]

permatozoa