Normal Salaries - Wow!

[Scary]

Whats stupid is, a 100K salary still only works out at roughly £350 per day.

20 days/month, 11 months/year at 350/day = 77k plus tax benefits minus permie benefits (if you don't spend any time out of contract).

[suityou01]

The Contractor, the major ones will be lack of flexibility and drop in income, obviously.

Still, if you're lucky then initial salary won't be your main driving force.

Had a 50-50 blend of exceptionally good luck, and really cruddy luck. My last permy gig was the dream job. Allegedly I was the lead developer/architect on a greenfield system development for an up and coming investment house. In reality, they were already courting a software consultancy in the background. The hiring manager was young and blew the budget on an IP phone system. So when I joined there was no money to hire, no money for tools, but surprisingly money to blow on the consultancy. I was completely marginalised, and in spite of producing a quality data model and core prototype (the likes of which the sales force said was 'unbelievably good', and that I had 'completely got it right first time' where others had failed).

The consultancy got listened to over me. Why? Because they were the consultancy, and I was the lone permy. What I was promised, even though I worked my ass off, never materialised.

So I went contracting. The adjustment is that they pay the same whether they listen or not. Some do, some don't. In my current gig I was "promised" full control of data architecture. One week in, that promise evaporated. My take? Less work and less responsibility for the same money. 6 months on and the system is in trouble owing to data architecture problems. The consultancy doing the development (offshore) were listened to over me. Now I am bailing the system out of the tulipe and I have sole authority on the data architecture.

Comme si, comme ca. Point is, as long as I am enjoying what I am doing, the money is less of a concern. As one who has been severely unhappy in the workplace, I don't think you can put a price on happiness. I would take being bored over severly stressed any day.

As for going permy?

[Churchill]

On a personal note I'm just contracting until the right permy job comes along.

Different people have different priorities.

[suityou01]

On a personal note I'm just contracting until the right permy job comes along.

Different people have different priorities.

Hand your pass in when you go

[FiveTimes]

On a personal note I'm just contracting until the right permy job comes along.

Different people have different priorities.

Spot on.

I've found hopefully the "right" permy job and I've taken it.

[Churchill]

Hand your pass in when you go

[FiveTimes]

hand your sockies in when you go

ftfy

[Pogle]

I am currently considering a move to a permie consultancy, there are only a couple I'd entertain and one of them is seriously in need of my skill set at the mo so I'm talking to someone who is already there and am putting my CV forward.

But back on topic I count my blessing everyday. I have a brother who earns minimum wage - in London. I think its very easy to become detached from how the VAST MAJORITY of people in this country live.

[alreadypacked]

Had a 50-50 blend of exceptionally good luck, and really cruddy luck. My last permy gig was the dream job. Allegedly I was the lead developer/architect on a greenfield system development for an up and coming investment house. In reality, they were already courting a software consultancy in the background. The hiring manager was young and blew the budget on an IP phone system. So when I joined there was no money to hire, no money for tools, but surprisingly money to blow on the consultancy. I was completely marginalised, and in spite of producing a quality data model and core prototype (the likes of which the sales force said was 'unbelievably good', and that I had 'completely got it right first time' where others had failed).

The consultancy got listened to over me. Why? Because they were the consultancy, and I was the lone permy. What I was promised, even though I worked my ass off, never materialised.

So I went contracting. The adjustment is that they pay the same whether they listen or not. Some do, some don't. In my current gig I was "promised" full control of data architecture. One week in, that promise evaporated. My take? Less work and less responsibility for the same money. 6 months on and the system is in trouble owing to data architecture problems. The consultancy doing the development (offshore) were listened to over me. Now I am bailing the system out of the tulipe and I have sole authority on the data architecture.

Comme si, comme ca. Point is, as long as I am enjoying what I am doing, the money is less of a concern. As one who has been severely unhappy in the workplace, I don't think you can put a price on happiness. I would take being bored over severly stressed any day.

As for going permy?

Your main issue is managment are not listening to you, in my experience they are not paying you enough. There are many roles I could apply for, I could live on a lower rate if I wanted too. But what stops me is I know if I go somewhere on a low rate, people will not listen to me.

Make a plan, build a war chest, find out what you need to fix about you and do it.

Doing the same thing and expecting a different result, not going to happen.

[suityou01]

Your main issue is managment are not listening to you, in my experience they are not paying you enough. There are many roles I could apply for, I could live on a lower rate if I wanted too. But what stops me is I know if I go somewhere on a low rate, people will not listen to me.

Make a plan, build a war chest, find out what you need to fix about you and do it.

Doing the same thing and expecting a different result, not going to happen.

Which again is why contracting is a good idea, as they are paying a king's ransom every day and have the choice to listen to you or not. Permy salaries are never that good in general, and if anyone tells you any different they liars. IT is a pretty crap industry to be in anyway so no one wants to listen to you in the first place as the whole department is an overhead anyway.

Rarely do you find a company that understands "competitive advantage" and how to use IT properly and they just carry on regardless with no standards, no design, no objectives, no testing, no documentation and just produce "ball of mud" systems the previous encumbant could no longer fathom out or got sacked for producing. At interview it's sold as a "challenge", in reality it's day after day of tulipe, on a low salary with no one listening. Seriously.