Boomed 900,000

[Ignis Fatuus]

Yes I know that's the line we spin to permie friends lest they get jealous, but it's not accurate in reality. On £400/day you gross £40k in just 20 weeks. If you're working <50% of the year on average, you're crap. And of course we're more tax efficient up to £42k than permies anyway.

ah, we're doing different arithmetic. I'm doing the one with Employer's NICs.

And I forgot to mention the cost of having to do weekly commutes, which I do much of the time. OTOH if you had to do that as a permie, it would be worse.

[malvolio]

£400 a day is roughly £50k salary with the usual package, assuming you work close to the full year. Not a bad screw, but pretty much par for any competent technical or business expert with ten years under their belt these days.

I look at it the other way. I know what I need to live on, and how much it costs to do the gig. Add on the various taxes and that's the minimum rate. All else is bonus.

[d000hg]

ah, we're doing different arithmetic. I'm doing the one with Employer's NICs.

What mug pays those

And I forgot to mention the cost of having to do weekly commutes, which I do much of the time. OTOH if you had to do that as a permie, it would be worse.

Hardly a fair consideration... many contractors don't work away from home and many (OK some) permies do.

[Paddy]

They have the same skills shortage in the US too, noted by Paul Krugman:

My nephew is in LA, he has just finished his Phd in computer systems. It cost ‘dad’ over $500,000 in fees and support. It took three months to get a job and his pay is $20 per hour. Humm, a shortage? No, most work goes offshore for cheapness.

[doodab]

If you have to pay £400/day to get good people, there is a shortage.

You mean there is a shortage of politicians, bankers and chief executives? How will we cope?

[d000hg]

You mean there is a shortage of politicians, bankers and chief executives? How will we cope?

I'm sure DA will be along to explain capitalism to you shortly.

[centurian]

Spot on - a skills shortage is when you don't have enough people with the required skills at any price - there simply are not enough people with those skills around to do the job.

What big business is moaning about is that there are not enough people the skills they want prepared to work for peanuts. It hurts their profit line.

[vetran]

I think a comparison with Accountants, Surveyors and Architects should provide a reasonable benchmark for a coder / tester / PM.

£50K to the person that tends the ERP system your £X million business lives on seems reasonable.

[Paddy]

Paddy Leaks (from an un-named outsource company.)

On-site support technician degree level.
Bob cost on ICT £70 pd
UK Contractor cost to agent £289 pd
Cost to end client £850 pd

On-site specialist degree level.
Bob cost on ICT £150 pd
UK Contractor cost to agent £520 pd
Cost to end client £1800 pd

In house ICT C# Bob £50 pd + shared sleeping accommodation with four others

[Scrag Meister]

"Quite simply, facing hundreds of thousands of unfilled vacancies, we cannot continue as we were; and we must all do our bit."

They can start by sacking all the internal recruitment people who spend their entire time sitting behind voicemail and convincing the management that the skills "are not there"

Internal recruitment got me my current role.

When does the gravy train depart? Hopefully us IT folks can get on board for a short trip.