Reply to: State of the Market

[agentzero]

you're confusing me with someone who GAFF what you think.

2 years ago TheDude wrote posts like yours. Big headed, indispensable, in demand. Now look at their posts. Tides turn, don't get cocky.

[TheDude]

whats most peoples expertise on here then Developers,

Ive been struggling to find a role now since september i was i turned down a Perm Job last July with a decent salary as i had 3 remote contracts come in at once then within weeks i was down to 1 which is terrible pay for the work im doing.

stupid decision to turn that role down i think given how bad its been since, not i cant seem to find Perm or Contract work

M365 Specialist btw

My experience is that my bread and butter - contract roles at investment banks - have disappeared.

I have accepted that perm is probably the best option. In the past I could virtually guarantee by CV would earn at least a phone screen but this is no longer the case.

The few perm interview processes I have experienced were over multiple stages and went very heavy on timed coding challenges.

I am currently on a public sector contract on my lowest ever rate (thankfully outside IR35). This is my third public sector contract in a year and the previous two have been cut short due to constantly changing vendor/supplier issues.

I have been told I have 40 more billable days this financial years and no idea if I will be renewed. I have little doubt the agent/supplier would cheerfully throw me under the bus just to re-advertise the role at a lower rate just so they could make another £20 a day.

[hungry_hog]

Looks like I'm going to get offered another 12 month extension on a FTC. Programme is doomed but the work-stream that I'm on is only mildly depressing.

FTC salary is good, with great benefits such as 8 weeks holiday & WFH

Not sure if a bird in the hand etc...

Bird in the hand is invaluable in this market. Can always apply for 'better' roles in meantime, easier to find new contracts when in contract (sadly). Friend of mine was out for 2 years and had to take contract at 200pd just to get back in.
Would say half the projects I have been on are 'death march'. Worked on one at a large US Bank which seemed to involve pulling metrics (won't say what they were) out of thin air and shoving in powerpoint for MDs. Literally added no value. Did it for 9 months and that was enough.

[DaiTheContractor]

how's the DevOps market at the min? been out of the contract world for good 15 years (used to do 2nd line worked my way through lots NHS trusts and councils) feel like I've hit a ceiling perm salary wise at 80k. considering getting into AI tools etc as that seems to be the direction....

The SC cleared and government-related DevOps work is booming from what I've seen on LinkedIn this week. They usually have very specific tooling experience requests but if it's similar enough to stuff you've worked on elsewhere you can easily blag it.

[SPURSN17]

how's the DevOps market at the min? been out of the contract world for good 15 years (used to do 2nd line worked my way through lots NHS trusts and councils) feel like I've hit a ceiling perm salary wise at 80k. considering getting into AI tools etc as that seems to be the direction....

[bobf]

whats most peoples expertise on here then Developers,

Ive been struggling to find a role now since september i was i turned down a Perm Job last July with a decent salary as i had 3 remote contracts come in at once then within weeks i was down to 1 which is terrible pay for the work im doing.

stupid decision to turn that role down i think given how bad its been since, not i cant seem to find Perm or Contract work

M365 Specialist btw

No work since 2024. Started off quiet and then got steadily worse. A couple of contract interviews in that time, and a handful of perm ones, but nothing landed. Although as the contract pimps haven't actually got back to me post-interview maybe I'm still in with a chance

[herestherelad]

whats most peoples expertise on here then Developers,

Ive been struggling to find a role now since september i was i turned down a Perm Job last July with a decent salary as i had 3 remote contracts come in at once then within weeks i was down to 1 which is terrible pay for the work im doing.

stupid decision to turn that role down i think given how bad its been since, not i cant seem to find Perm or Contract work

M365 Specialist btw

[BlueSharp]

Yes I do. It's the negative, pointless, zero-value ones I have problems with...

That's got to be at least 80% of all traffic on the forum!

[coolhandluke]

Looks like I'm going to get offered another 12 month extension on a FTC. Programme is doomed but the work-stream that I'm on is only mildly depressing.

FTC salary is good, with great benefits such as 8 weeks holiday & WFH

Not sure if a bird in the hand etc...

[malvolio]

careful, malevolent doesn't like positive posts on here.

Yes I do. It's the negative, pointless, zero-value ones I have problems with...

[WTFH]

state of the market today 'red hot'...

I concur. Old client (i.e. not done any work for them in 15+ years) got one of their PMs to contact me earlier. I was going into a meeting with current client, so I delayed them until just now. Two meetings in the next week to help them define the scope of the work. The work is already approved, but they want a t-shirt size on the budget.

At the same time I had an email from an agent asking if I could recommend anyone for a role she had where she was the sole agency. She knew I wasn't available at the rate they had.

[sadkingbilly]

An extension was offered today for a death march project, so yay, but ho hum.

Half an hour later, an invite to interview for what could be an interesting project at a slightly better rate.

state of the market today 'red hot'...

careful, malevolent doesn't like positive posts on here.

[BlueSharp]

An extension was offered today for a death march project, so yay, but ho hum.

Half an hour later, an invite to interview for what could be an interesting project at a slightly better rate.

state of the market today 'red hot'...

[Dorkeaux]

I've finished up on my last project before Crimbo.
Ate lots of mince pies and cheese, just back from a week skiing.
Now starting to look for a contract.

Lots of contact and phantom roles from agents, a few interviews.
I feel the agents and hiring managers are trying, but the prospective roles don't seem to materialise into actual contracts as they used to.

One of the prospective roles has a very keen agent trying (in vain) to get me to become a permie.
I've convinced him to pitch me to the client as a contractor.
He's giving it a go, bless him.
Seems a perfect fit from the job spec, but it's a long shot.

Never mind, if I line up 30 long shots in a row one will probably stick.

[rocktronAMP]

Well I learn new stuff all the time - and BTW, kids, this is what happens when everything is done in 3 letter abbreviations - you get confusing overlap.

VME (the one Malvolio mentioned) - mainframe operating system for ICL mainframes.

VME (as applied to DEC VAX etc) some kind of parallel bus thing that allowed VAX machines to connect directly to other tech.

DEC VAX - a range of computers (none were mainframes) and confusingly also the operating system they used.

VAX - Brand of vacuum cleaners and carpet cleaners.

VMS === Vomit Making System (joke). === Virtual Memory System operating system developed by BCC for VAX machines. Back in the early 1990s, the physical address limits of CPU and RAM was a real thing and disk space was very very expensive. Unlike today's modern cloud infrastructure and architecture were disk space is cheap, RAM can be dear and then getting high performance GPUs is expensive.

Actually DEC was great in 1992 ! They had VMS applications that were makeovers / emulations from UNIX, which I didn't know at the time.
I remember VMS MMS === UNIX make.
I remember VMS BAT === UNIX batch processing , shell piping
I remember VMS EDIT == UNIX VI
I also remember VMS Shell === a kind of hybrid mix of MS DOS mixed with BASH
VAX C === HP UX C / SunOS C / IBM C compiler
VAX FORTRAN === ? ( I never ever found, because the joint-venture company I worked for suddenly invested in Sun Microsystems Sun OS Sparc microprocessor pizza box machines -- I learnt UNIX (SunOS) properly \o/ )

DEC Digital also pioneered a very first commercial RISC chips microprocessor based machine DEC Alpha. I think we had a beta version for scientific calculation software, but it got sent back.

Interesting thread about this old technology, but without it I'd never found Richard Stallman, GNU, FSF, open source and Perl and BASH programming and also GNU CC and C++. Wow! It was foundational. For the Gen Zee forget about it!