Reply to: Moving to UK from New Zealand to contract

[SussexSeagull]

I know Contracting is facing challenges in the upcoming years but I really do think all this talk of it being over as an industry is a bit overdone. Everyone has a different skill set and there will be regional variations but most contractors I personally know see to be doing ok.

I do think at times people think confuse the state of the financial sector with the state of the whole industry.

[Pgtips]

We have a tonne of NZ'ers leading the Chinese tech teams in china.

China is our biggest export market. In return Chinese are allowed to pump their cheap money into our real estate market which has a created a massive bubble in Auckland. I'd dare say that Auckland property overall is more expensive than that of London. Plus I think we've sold off a lot of farmland to them as well. China owns us pretty much.

[Dallas]

We have a tonne of NZ'ers leading the Chinese tech teams in china.

[Pgtips]

VMWare, it's not going anywhere soon.

True. From what I can see on Jobserve, Citrix XenApp Migration work still seems to attracting good daily rates too.
There seems to be a massive variation of what daily rates are on offer though. A few seem pretty laughable like they want someone who's an expert across storage, virtualisation, networking and server admin for 150 a day!

[NigelJK]

What skillset do you think infrastructure engineers should be learning to stay competitive in the market

VMWare, it's not going anywhere soon.

[seanraaron]

Thanks for info. Yeah Dad's from Scotland so getting citizenship through him.
Happy to work abroad in EU too, though I don't speak any European languages except for English.

Scotland has financial and energy services that use IT (though the latter has taken a serious knock, granted). Jobs aren't thick on the ground and probably won't command London rates, but the cost of living is lower here which compensates.

[Pgtips]

The tools that automate them. In my field (telecoms) I would suggest looking at BSS and OSS, I would recommend looking at ZTE's ZSmart & Huawei's NGBSS or DC portfolios.

As horrific as this sounds price is winning and:

a) The Chinese are hiring
b) The telcos are hiring people who know the Chinese products.

Have a look here to get a feel for infrastructure, telco biased, but anyway.

https://www.tmforum.org/

*Or of course get out of infrastructure and get in with the OTT crowd who are grabbing huge chunks of revenue.

Yeah there appears to be a lot of good work in the OTT space. Pretty interesting too. Guess Pgtips Ltd will be claiming back a lot of training costs..

[clearedforlanding]

Some helpful replies. Thanks guys.
Infrastructure roles dissapearing to automation is happening worldwide. What skillset do you think infrastructure engineers should be learning to stay competitive in the market?

The tools that automate them. In my field (telecoms) I would suggest looking at BSS and OSS, I would recommend looking at ZTE's ZSmart & Huawei's NGBSS or DC portfolios.

As horrific as this sounds price is winning and:

a) The Chinese are hiring
b) The telcos are hiring people who know the Chinese products.

Have a look here to get a feel for infrastructure, telco biased, but anyway.

https://www.tmforum.org/

*Or of course get out of infrastructure and get in with the OTT crowd who are grabbing huge chunks of revenue.

[clearedforlanding]

Thanks for info. Yeah Dad's from Scotland so getting citizenship through him.
Happy to work abroad in EU too, though I don't speak any European languages except for English.

The locals & the guys who ran for the hills when IR35 came out do.

Fancy an implementation/migration alongside 20 year olds in French using an AZERTY keyboard, In German with a QWERTZ, ¿In Spanish with a QWERTY with these "´çñ`"?

I would skill up one speciality with a future before moving over, I really would.

[Pgtips]

Hi Pgtips,

Having come from NZ also, with what sounds a similar background to you, I contracted in London for about 10 years.

I guess I marketed myself in the "3rd line server support" space pushing all the various projects and products I had experience in, luckily I got my first contract (in Citrix) with an Investment Bank and managed to stay in that area when the going was good. In NZ you have to be a jack of all trades and it gives great skills, albiet on a much smaller scale. I am sure you're used to having full admin rights and the ability to implement as you see fit (within reason) when rolling out and testing a project/solution for a NZ customer.

You will find that the contract roles in London etc will be rather compartmentalised or quite project specific. I am not saying a general support role won't exist (especially in smaller firms), but you will more likely find yourself being the Citrix guy, or the VMware guy or the exchange guy, the backup and restore guy etc and you may well be typecast in a specific technology depending on your first role. You also won't have anywhere near full admin rights and will need to work in a stricter change control environment with a lot more internal politics. Also, IB's etc tend to make use of a lot of add-on BS products sitting on top of Active Directory or various "profile/server/enterprise management software" etc which is a whole nightmare to work with in itself.

Don't go pointing out everything wrong with their systems (unless this is what you have been asked to do) and how with your kit bag of tools and scripts from NZ can do it do much better... Bring them out as appropriate to your actual tasks by all means, but don't try throwing your weight around too much . If you like what you end up doing, as a contractor, do what they want from you without rocking the boat and just "keep invoicing", learn who in actually in charge of contract renewals and ensure you are seen by the project manager as "invaluable" in implementing whatever the PM is tasked to deliver. As a contractor, it is about having work, networking with people, simply being professional (in doing the role expected of you) and invoicing. The social scene is also quite important. Join in the wed/thurs/fri drinks at the pub to be seen a team player - and ALWAYS buy them a round when your turn comes up! I know it seems expensive to buy 6 beers for everyone there when you only plan on drinking 2 the whole night.. but you have to do it and it evens out over the long-term. Also don't go counting pennies after the inevitable indian curry you all go to when the drunk, obnoxious twat of a colleague who ate everything off the menu simply exclaims "to just split the bill equally between everyone" - its quite common for food bills just to be split. If you do end up paying individually, don't be the last one to pay... just go with the flow. Get on with who you need to and keep invoicing!

I found the 3rd line support field quite good a few years back, as others have posted. Recently these roles have gone. Datacenters/servers are virtualised, Office 365 has taken over (making many Exchange Admins redundant) and everything is just becoming managed service. Everything is "ordered" and "processed", such as a new user account, a new server to be provisioned etc all via change control and there are teams for everything opposed to you "doing it all" in NZ.

But I got almost all of my contracts from jobserve over the years. Apply and if you are particularly interested in a role, ring them up 30 minutes later, speak to the recruiter and tell them you applied for the role - this will make them being up your CV and give you a chance to make your pitch. Rule of thumb used to be 10 application, 3 interviews, at least one offer. Don't be too concerned about rate when you first get there, obviously don't take a sub 200 a day tulip role, but even if its 250 or 300, take it for 3 months, learn how it works and move on

One thing not to forgot, your shiny new UK passport (from a parent originally born in UK?) lets you work in the EU also. Don't turn down a nice contract in Germany or elsewhere on the continent... there are many of them and its a great experience!

Good luck.

Thanks for info. Yeah Dad's from Scotland so getting citizenship through him.
Happy to work abroad in EU too, though I don't speak any European languages except for English.

[Pgtips]

Some helpful replies. Thanks guys.
Infrastructure roles dissapearing to automation is happening worldwide. What skillset do you think infrastructure engineers should be learning to stay competitive in the market?

[psychocandy]

Sorry to have to tell you but the IT goldrush ended in UK about 5 years ago. Your skillset will fetch perhaps £250-300 a day max if you can even find a role nowadays a lot of these roles are being outsourced to the lowest bidder which means the contractor gets very little.
Your competing against highly skilled people who have worked in the UK for years & have a checkable history.

Lots of employers now want security checks for these type of higher level roles can you pass the CRB check & or other security clearances required like police checks, education checks, credit checks, referee checks etc etc. The days of just starting a role without extensive checks are rapidly fading. You should come here & try to get a 3 month contract first see how easy/hard that is. Or another option is look at the websites for NZ/Australian companies based in London they advertise jobs directly it will be easier to get into one of those as a lot of the people in HR are from NZ or Australia in my experience having worked at a couple over the years.

Good luck but its harder than ever to find an IT job in London too much competition & your probably going to be heavily disadvantaged by not having a fully checkable UK based credit, police & background check history for the roles which require that.

Nope. There are some for this skillset £350-£400 even outside london. A lot around £300 or less though I will agree.

[psychocandy]

About 90% of the work is in London.
About 90% of your post-tax income will go in rent.

NZ is a much nicer place.

Bulltulip

[uk contractor]

Thanks for the info. I've noticed that quite a few of these roles require security clearance and those ones command premium rates. I wonder if permie roles are more lucrative.

Perm roles are less lucrative now than ever before. So much is outsourced to the cheapest bidder perms are only staying in roles to pay mortgages they are all scared of losing their jobs to someone cheaper from an outsourcer.

As I said the UK IT goldrush is over unless you have real niche skills & a checkable UK based security, credit & police history forget it. At best all you will be able to get is a short term contract which is most likely covering for project based perm secondment then when they are done so is your contract the days of getting rolling contracts is rapidly going away. Your skillset is not niche at all anymore most of that is covered by the big outsourcing companies at a very low employee rate.

Try looking elsewhere UK is anything but easy to get contract work. So many of us are sitting on the bench as the rates are very low & or the work is just not there anymore. It is what it is you are better staying in NZ if you can find the work there London had a great contract market about 15 years ago. About 5 years ago it nosedived once newer tech replaced the need for skilled support staff. Now its treading water.

[Yonmons]

Probably a good appraisel of the state of play in the UK contract market reading the whole thread. HMS Happy Contractor ship sailed and crossed the horizon some years ago. I have been in contracting 15 yrs, its about at its lowest eb for me these days. Strangely my mate who is a network designer is off to NZ this year after years of contracting in the UK. Stay where you are mate, all that glisters is not gold.