Reply to: State of the Market

[rocktronAMP]

Exactly. The population is getting older, an increasing % of govt expenditure is going towards taking care of them through the decrepit NHS, ramshackle eldercare system and unsustainable triple/quadruple locked state pensions. At the same time the working population (especially middle and higher income earners) are being subjected to unprecedented levels of taxation to square this circle.

Unless and until the general voting population makes grown-up choices, the overall tax burden and size of the state is only going one way, the same direction they’ve been moving in under the “low tax” and “small state” Tories over the past 14 years - UP!

And they will steadfastly not apply the grease in order to restart the economy, to encourage investment, retrieve the "talent" from the benches that industry needs.
They (whoever) will not remove or abandon IR35 and definitely will not reverse the Off Payroll Worker rules.
Welcome to Drudge Britain, no longer Great, and turning into a sad fortress.
Sigh.

Hey ho. In Germany, they have a worse national train service than our Uk national ones: Die Deutsche Bahn.

[Yuri F]

There's more than enough money, the problem is with spend efficiency, significant chunk of it is absorbed by corruption or wasted, highly exploiting long-term or perpetual contracts inherited from political lobbying with unbearable exit fees, etc. More money you throw into furnace only makes those shadow beneficiaries richer, it's rather hostage situation. Productivity in public sector is laughable despite many naive maximalists putting all their best effort to provide service to society. There's hardly any tangible punishment for corruption (or often labeled as negligence) apart of declarative slapping on the wrists if caught, lack of real accountability and competence in populist-driven politics is the source of all the issues.
Moreover in general those who directly earned money by adding actual value know how to spend money best (private sector), not those who received it through redistribution (taxation), spending someone' else money have always been an easy job, often leading to malinvestment, inefficiencies and waste.

[sreed]

The certainty is that whoever is going to be in power, taxes ARE going up.

Exactly. The population is getting older, an increasing % of govt expenditure is going towards taking care of them through the decrepit NHS, ramshackle eldercare system and unsustainable triple/quadruple locked state pensions. At the same time the working population (especially middle and higher income earners) are being subjected to unprecedented levels of taxation to square this circle.

Unless and until the general voting population makes grown-up choices, the overall tax burden and size of the state is only going one way, the same direction they’ve been moving in under the “low tax” and “small state” Tories over the past 14 years - UP!

[edison]

It would be nice to have a separate thread for the wannabe Warren Buffets and save this one for tales of the state of the market in contracts.

We might as well have multiple threads in that case, there is no single market for IT skills. There is a broad range of skillsets, sectors, types of organisation and geography that make the usefulness of comparisons fairly limited.

Most of the posts on here are fairly narrow in scope and the individual's particular history and circumstances.

[oliverson]

Nothing is set in stone though, all they need to say is that after coming into power and reviewing the state of the budget, they have to increase corp taxes for example to pay for all sorts of public services and everyone will applaud them. Businesses will reduce spending again, cut costs wherever and we'll be way deeper in this tulip than we currently are.

Exactly. Inevitable we'll have a "oh tulip, look what we've inherited" from Labour followed by "our pledge not to increase taxes was made without knowing the dire state of the finances", etc. Emergency budget, etc. Every tax in the book goes up, every allowance goes down or remains frozen. People's finances stretched even more, business confidence plummets lower. Hate to be the doom monger here, and thank god I just signed a 12 month extension with my US client, but I can't see a positive outcome to this until maybe 5 years down the line when Labour have ****ed up and hopefully Reform UK take over.

[dsc]

Not that much uncertainty, given how much the incoming government have decided to stick with existing plans (e.g. tax bands frozen) and ruled out increases to several types of tax (e.g. income tax).
The certainty is that whoever is going to be in power, taxes ARE going up.

Nothing is set in stone though, all they need to say is that after coming into power and reviewing the state of the budget, they have to increase corp taxes for example to pay for all sorts of public services and everyone will applaud them. Businesses will reduce spending again, cut costs wherever and we'll be way deeper in this tulip than we currently are.

[Smartie]

Uncertainty on tax policy.

Not that much uncertainty, given how much the incoming government have decided to stick with existing plans (e.g. tax bands frozen) and ruled out increases to several types of tax (e.g. income tax).
The certainty is that whoever is going to be in power, taxes ARE going up.

[Bluenose]

Doesn't seem much uncertainty about the UK election. Labour to win big, just a question of how big.

Uncertainty on tax policy.

[tsmith]

Is it just me or is permie life just constant reorganisations, worries about redundancy, applying for your own job etc? I’m not sure having a permanent role is any more secure than contracting for
many, just minus the war chest we get to build up.

Unless the company is a unicorn with hockey stick revenue growth then high probability = yes

My first perm job - small start up head count was just flat for 3 years. Should have left after a year. Working in an industry in decline - but no layoffs

2nd perm - Lost count of rounds of redundancy + restructures. Large bricks and mortar type biz. Another industry massively disrupted by digital and struggling to cope

At least 5 redundancy rounds - reorgs were are yearly occurrence at least. Again should have left years before. But was doing my own startup behind scenes so suited me - as my boss was fired and wasnt replaced.

If you apply for perm check the glassdoor reviews. Its amazing how many are hiring but then recent reviews. "Constant layoffs/reorgs"

Heres a real example

"There is no business strategy or direction (or if there is, it changes every week, as the CEO pleases).

Most decisions are made at the top, so don't expect to be respected as an expert in your field - if the CEO says it needs to be done completely the opposite way, there is no way anyone will disagree or voice their concerns.

Expect your skills to worsen while you're at xxx - there isn't much opportunity to show them off or apply them

The turnover is so high. It is shocking. Most people I met during my first week during intros have told me they are leaving"

[dsc]

Is it just me or is permie life just constant reorganisations, worries about redundancy, applying for your own job etc? I’m not sure having a permanent role is any more secure than contracting for
many, just minus the war chest we get to build up.

It seems that if the upper mgmt is clueless about what the company actually does, they often go for a "digital transformation" as if that's the sure way to increasing efficiency etc. it's basically what Agile was back in 2015-2020, the magical ticket to hyper-efficient organisations.

As for re-applying to your own positions, that's also happening where I am now, some people suddenly found their name not on the new org charts and having to re-apply to their own positions effectively. One manager I worked with recently has really been fecked by this, he agreed to be an interim manager for a whole team which he thought would be a positive thing to have on his CV and now that whole team was wiped from the org chart, so he's basically an interim manager of nothing and has to apply to another position elsewhere in the business or have no job. If he stayed as a standard manager and not taken the interim position, he would've been placed in a new team for ops and still have a job without having to reapply to anything.

[Ketto]

In my case there already was a re-org like a year ago, but mostly just shifting people around, this time though it's pretty major, with new org groups and the new manager is hell bent on pushing people hard and thinks consultants are just money grabbing lazy bastards, so pretty much every non-permie is going out. Of course that leads to situations where a bunch of skill-less permies are left and the consultants who've been doing the brunt of the work or have very niche skills are getting chopped. All this whilst announcing left / right that there's so much work coming in 2025 that everyone will be uber busy and not realising that if you cut some skilled people, they won't be available in 6 months time when the work load comes.

Gotta love those "digital transformation" idiots at the steering wheel...

Is it just me or is permie life just constant reorganisations, worries about redundancy, applying for your own job etc? I’m not sure having a permanent role is any more secure than contracting for
many, just minus the war chest we get to build up.

[GJABS]

Right, I've just finished my gig on Friday, so budge up on the (unfortunately very long) bench please.

I've just gone onto my LinkedIn, for the first time in a couple of weeks, and was greeted with this:



Unemployed! Grrr

[dsc]

My client (mid sized FS firm) is at the early stages of (yet another) reorg triggered by the firing/resignation of their c-suite Tech guy.

Apparently their parent co has given them a payroll reduction target and (at least according to my manager) the new king of the hill is considering using more contractors instead of perm hires. To balance that out he also said that the consultants they've appointed have reported that their salary scales and rates in the delivery teams are 'too high', whatever that means.

They've been trying to get rid of day-rate contractors (I'm now on a PAYE FTC until Christmas) outside super specialist short-term roles so it'll be interesting to see how this pans out...

In my case there already was a re-org like a year ago, but mostly just shifting people around, this time though it's pretty major, with new org groups and the new manager is hell bent on pushing people hard and thinks consultants are just money grabbing lazy bastards, so pretty much every non-permie is going out. Of course that leads to situations where a bunch of skill-less permies are left and the consultants who've been doing the brunt of the work or have very niche skills are getting chopped. All this whilst announcing left / right that there's so much work coming in 2025 that everyone will be uber busy and not realising that if you cut some skilled people, they won't be available in 6 months time when the work load comes.

Gotta love those "digital transformation" idiots at the steering wheel...

[oliverson]

It would be nice to have a separate thread for the wannabe Warren Buffets and save this one for tales of the state of the market in contracts.

Totally agree

[willendure]

It would be nice to have a separate thread for the wannabe Warren Buffets and save this one for tales of the state of the market in contracts.

You don't think the two are linked?