What % of your turnover goes on training ?

[Dominic Connor]

What % of your turnover goes on training for new skills, maintaining existing, including books, etc.

The impression I get is that contractors under-invest in their primary asset-their skills.

[NotAllThere]

About 1% for me this year - often less than that. But then, I have a huge turnover. The trouble is, I've either done all the courses relevant to my skillset, or I've already got the skill through working it out for myself.

The 1% this year was a workshop for some new technology that I'll be working with later in the year.

[d000hg]

Virtually 0. But I never paid to get my skills as a permie, and nor did anyone else - I've always learned by doing. A project has some side work in new tech X so I take it on and learn a bit about X.

Actually I do spend freely on books when I need them, On the basis that spending an hour looking at books to choose one, I could have just bought 3 and done some work for the same net cost.

edit: would a mod add a poll?

[MadDawg]

The problem with training courses isn't just the cost of the course - it's the lost billing days too.
Thinking I might see what's around at the end of this gig - haven't done a formal course for years.

[aussielong]

I would like to do the CQF (Dominic's course) Certificate in Quantitative Finance (CQF) - Mathematical Finance Qualification | CQF

But it's too damn expensive at over 10k sterling ..

I'm paying a maths PhD to teach me the same stuff at a much lower cost

The certificate itself is not recognised anywhere, especially outside of the UK

Dominic, why not make it 5k? Its largely self study anyway

[VectraMan]

0%. Books are a waste of time compared to all the free (and more up to date) information available online, and training courses are only for the gullible, unless very specific.

[d000hg]

Books may get out of date but there's a big difference (to me) between reading and figuring out the official documentation from MS, and reading a book which has done the figuring out part for me. It's a bit like at university - you could skip all your lectures and learn from the textbooks but it's not generally as easy.

Plus I have no interest in keep right on the bleeding edge; I'd distrust any company who wants to do a project in tech so new there aren't any books on it. And staying up to speed is a full-time job, I'd rather get good at a tech and use it

[NotAllThere]

...

edit: would a mod add a poll?

Done.

0%. Books are a waste of time

You've read a book?

[scooterscot]

Probably spent €10k on software over the last year.

[sasguru]

I'm paying a maths PhD to teach me the same stuff at a much lower cost

Must be expensive, what with the special needs supplement.