Reply to: State of the Market

[Bluenose]

Just returned from Spain and going back there in a few weeks, weather is better, food is better and also a lot cheaper.
Also plan to spend more time with my parents during the summer, they are in their 60's and I think I will regret it later if I do not get to spend more time with them now.(been away for multiple years)

If you are going to apply for a Spanish Nomad visa next month, please contribute to the thread

[sadkingbilly]

Just returned from Spain and going back there in a few weeks.

bye

[GigiBronz]

If you plan to leave the UK and go somewhere cheaper then you have that option.

The way i see it taking a perm job isn't the end of the world, you can jump whenever the contract market picks back up. Or even sooner if you want and return back to the bench or leave the country whenever you feel like it.

If you were cold called about hybrid perm roles then you could of found a fully remote one if you had actively looked. Seems like it got a lot harder last week to even find a good perm role.

Having a large contractor warchest on hand and taking a perm role that covers living expenses is not indentured servitude, it is when you have no savings and living paycheck to paycheck that life gets really hard.

Just returned from Spain and going back there in a few weeks, weather is better, food is better and also a lot cheaper.
Also plan to spend more time with my parents during the summer, they are in their 60's and I think I will regret it later if I do not get to spend more time with them now.(been away for multiple years)

BUT, how I see it, getting a permanent role is usually harder than a contract:
- you are demotivated because the pay is tulip, even 100-120k, taxes are too high (and they'd want their pound of flesh for that salary).
- slightly lower salary but good company is probably preferred than a salary that would always put you in the spotlight.
- almost all of the roles I have seen are 2 days on site central London
- the hiring manager would be very reticent to hire a contractor because he/she might think that you would be harder to control than the rest.
- your technical ability / work ethic / resilience is futile when a hiring manager looks for 'cultural fit' and control.

The best punchline that describes the job market today: "Finding the most willing slave"

I am not running out of money just yet but it would ne nice to wake up with a purpose, have some work that brings you meaning. Not just show up, talk the usual corporate crap and pretend you are doing a good job for the privilege of getting paid 4k net per month.

I accepted two days for a 40% rate increase.

I kind of regret it and dread every Wednesday and Thursday however I would like to thank TFL and the rail unions for doing what they can to help.

Landed on Gatwick a few days ago and had to zig-zag around London by train only to be able to get to the Isle of Dogs. The underground was not working.

If you live in London it is still crowded in the morning but if you leave outside London and have to rely on trains to get in - that is a pain. And most people are in the later situation as you get more for your £ outside of London. (rents have gone up also 30% in some area of London, which nobody seems to be talking about - salaries still the same) Tickets are an arm and a leg. I don't know how many people are not complaining about it.
Most people pay 40-50£ for a round-trip ticket just outside of M25, that and also a lot of time wasted eating for services. IT beats me where they find the energy, especially that you are showing on site just for the presence. Meetings are almost all the the v virtual anyway.

[TheDude]

Can I just check we all got the memo about not throwing fellow contractors under the bus by accepting "X days in office" roles?

I accepted two days for a 40% rate increase.

I kind of regret it and dread every Wednesday and Thursday however I would like to thank TFL and the rail unions for doing what they can to help.

[Bluenose]

Can I just check we all got the memo about not throwing fellow contractors under the bus by accepting "X days in office" roles?

Since RBS London campuses went ad-hoc/fully remote in 2014 (and many others followed suit) I have not been forced into the office for almost 10 years now.

The only roles I have seen for 3-5 days in the office are those attached to the Military/Police/Associated Agencies etc.

[Fraidycat]

The phone has barely rang since November.
I get the occasional perm recruiter with the ~75k role for a great company, hybrid in London. To which I often respond:
”My rent and bills are 3k, the other costs associated with existing in London ~1.5k.
If I were to accept a position that barely covers my modest lifestyle, wouldn’t that be indentured servitude with few extra steps?”

If you plan to leave the UK and go somewhere cheaper then you have that option.

The way i see it taking a perm job isn't the end of the world, you can jump whenever the contract market picks back up. Or even sooner if you want and return back to the bench or leave the country whenever you feel like it.

If you were cold called about hybrid perm roles then you could of found a fully remote one if you had actively looked. Seems like it got a lot harder last week to even find a good perm role.

Having a large contractor warchest on hand and taking a perm role that covers living expenses is not indentured servitude, it is when you have no savings and living paycheck to paycheck that life gets really hard.

[GigiBronz]

I will leave this one here.

Job Listings Abound, but Many Are Fake:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/that-pl...ghost-3aafc794

I’ve been on the bench since November, the issue is not that I am not good enough to get the roles…
I do not even get the chance to prove that I am not good enough .
The phone has barely rang since November.

I get the occasional perm recruiter with the ~75k role for a great company, hybrid in London. To which I often respond:
”My rent and bills are 3k, the other costs associated with existing in London ~1.5k.
If I were to accept a position that barely covers my modest lifestyle, wouldn’t that be indentured servitude with few extra steps?”
Some of the lough, I tend not to as the pain registers as I say it…

[gixxer2021]

Can I just check we all got the memo about not throwing fellow contractors under the bus by accepting "X days in office" roles?

100% Not set foot in an office for over 4 years and no intention to in the future. Always make sure it’s written into my contracts, so there’s no change of heart after I’ve just started…

[SussexSeagull]

I have been into an office twice since lockdown without actually going out of my way to have that arrangement so am perfectly aware of the joys of it but the contracts I am in discussions with now mainly seem to involve some visits to the office varying from a couple off times a week to once in a blue moon. TBH if the money is right it doesn't really bother me as I am in a service industry.

If you can get along flat out refusing to ever visit an office then fair enough but I suspect it will become more difficult to achieve.

[PerfectStorm]

How many months on the bench would it take before you accepted a 5 day/full time in the office contract?

quite a few; may as well look at alternative avenues by that point. Life is too short.

[Fraidycat]

Can I just check we all got the memo about not throwing fellow contractors under the bus by accepting "X days in office" roles?

How many months on the bench would it take before you accepted a 5 day/full time in the office contract?

[sreed]

If people don't want to go to an office and can find work that allows them to do that then fine. However there is someone I connected with in LinkedIn for some reason I can't remember who is obviously getting a bit desperate to find a new contract but mentions he doesn't want to go into an office unless absolutely necessary more or less before anything else.

As a PM, all the private-sector contracts (mostly small/mid-sized fintech firms) that I've done since the pandemic begun have been fully remote with no expectation of visiting the client's office other than the one-off meeting or event once every few months or so.

As far as I can tell, there are plenty of fully remote (with ad-hoc travel) roles out there, at least in my line of work.

I'm currently working a public sector contract where there's a requirement to have logged in at their nearest office at least twice a week. It's a pain in the arse with no obvious benefit (as the people I work with are spread across the country) but apparently the minister wants to see a spreadsheet every week showing a minimum occupancy level in the regional offices which they spent a lot of money on and signed 25 year leases for just before the pandemic hit. Talk about bad timing!

My manager (who initially said that the 2 days policy doesn't apply to contractors and that I needn't come in but reversed that later) said that I could just drop into the cafe on the first floor, connect to the office WiFi and that would suffice to mark me as 'present' on their MI.

While I would never consider a fully office based contract until the kids left home and it was no more than a 15-20 minute drive away, I would look at hybrid roles (1-2 days a week) if the contract paid a premium to compensate for the hassle of a regular commute and subjecting myself to our piss-poor rail service.

[PerfectStorm]

If people don't want to go to an office and can find work that allows them to do that then fine. However there is someone I connected with in LinkedIn for some reason I can't remember who is obviously getting a bit desperate to find a new contract but mentions he doesn't want to go into an office unless absolutely necessary more or less before anything else.

Its also often the first line on job role ads.

Times are changing. People are reclaiming their lives - what little of them they have left to use. Will you (rhetorically) be joining in?

[SussexSeagull]

0 days in the office and you better be brilliant otherwise the work will be off-shored.

Current project (and client) is 0 days in the office but I'm not taking that as the future.

If people don't want to go to an office and can find work that allows them to do that then fine. However there is someone I connected with in LinkedIn for some reason I can't remember who is obviously getting a bit desperate to find a new contract but mentions he doesn't want to go into an office unless absolutely necessary more or less before anything else.

[eek]

Can I just check we all got the memo about not throwing fellow contractors under the bus by accepting "X days in office" roles?

0 days in the office and you better be brilliant otherwise the work will be off-shored.

Current project (and client) is 0 days in the office but I'm not taking that as the future.