Reply to: State of the Market

[TheDude]

The person who signs my timesheet has indicated they want to keep me beyond the 20 week engagement limit and has asked how I would feel taking a 3 month sabbatical at the end of this period with the intent to engage me for a further two years.

Nothing guaranteed because the firm are laying people off at the moment but he is trying to force an exemption and I quite fancy 3 months off over Xmas.

[Unix]

After the election (UK and US) and when inflation is back to normal levels for a few quarters, interest rates will come down a bit. This is when the Corporations will unleash their capital again. I think this will be in Spring 2025 but that's pure speculation.

With Labour in power I expect to move to public sector teet for a while after this one ends, needs must.

[Fraidycat]

All the signs at the moment are that contract market will shrink and will stay this way,

No sure how you can say that, the IT Perm market is similarly slow as far as i can tell. Maybe it is the end of IT as we know it then for both Perm and Contract. But still too early to say.

[Sub]

ITS. A. NUMBERS. GAME.
Keep pushing every day. Rock Discipline. Get a discipline.

Yes, that is great advice. Staying active and do not add health issues (physical or mental) to financial ones is critical. I also managed to make my peace with the idea that I'd never find a contract again, so put 100% efforts to my own thing. It is not ready to pay bills yet, but it greatly slowing down warchest depletion. Got a contract in the end, but just to buy more time to business growth.

All the signs at the moment are that contract market will shrink and will stay this way, so many of us will face a choice of make our own business work (and not just selling labor off-payroll) or get back to the employment hell.

[dsc]

Missed the mortgage payment this month. Things are getting severe.

Sorry to hear that would you be able to make ends meet with a generic job, stacking shelves, amazon, deliveries etc? or are your outgoings way too high to make it work?

Personally I can't see things improving in the next 3-6months, so I'd say you need to find something else to get you going over the rest of the year and quite possibly into early 2025 :/

[Martin@AS Financial]

Missed the mortgage payment this month. Things are getting severe.

Sorry to hear you are having a rough time.

If you haven't already, it is worth contacting your lender to ask for a payment holiday to give you a bit of breathing space. It may also be possible to switch to interest only for a bit or extend the mortgage term.

Fingers crossed things improve for you asap.

[cojak]

rocktronAMP Oh I like it - I’m saving that link for when I see the next poster feel a bit low.

And thanks to you all for your suggestions and links to help and advice. They may help others more than you realise.

[hobnob]

Missed the mortgage payment this month. Things are getting severe.

I'm sorry to hear that. Here are a couple of links that might help:
How to deal with missed mortgage payments - Shelter England
Dealing with mortgage arrears - Citizens Advice

It might be worth looking at drastic options, e.g. putting a tent in your back garden while you rent the house out as an AirBnB.

[GJABS]

Missed the mortgage payment this month. Things are getting severe.

Are you claiming all benefits you may be entitled to?
If you are on benefits you might be able to claim mortgage interest payments:
https://www.gov.uk/support-for-mortg...what-youll-get

[Fraidycat]

Missed the mortgage payment this month. Things are getting severe.

You need to find some way to hang on for another six to twelve months.

Past slumps that were caused by rising interest rates (ie. early 90s and early 2000s) lasted approx 2.5 years, maybe 3 years tops.

And we are just 2 years into this one which started in the middle of 2022.

[sspt27]

ITS. A. NUMBERS. GAME.

Keep pushing every day. Rock Discipline. Get a discipline.[LIST=1]

Excellent suggestions, and extremely helpful!

I don't think I'd personally implement everything on your list: but the effort you've put in there, and the number of good ideas you list, means that surely anyone in this position can find something there that suits them (or inspires them to find their own variants).

The attitude you describe is - of course - what I (and probably most people) had and stuck to when I was first on the bench. But... after months... and months... and months... of this utter ColourfulDutchFlower, it's all too easy to fall off the self-directed, self-disciplining, self-organising, self-maintaining wagon.

Best points for me are:

a) 4. Don't watch the tulipy news! Or if you do, limit it to "have the aliens landed yet? No? Enough then".
b) Switch the F off. That's the hardest, but (if approached right) also quite easy. Because you haven't actually achieved anything all week, it's all too easy to never switch off - as if by some Jedi-power, exerted at 20:02 on Saturday evening, I could make an agent dream a little dream of me and then call me on Monday with a fat juicy contract. The "easy" way to avoid this is to actually do everything you can: to do that, you have to pull yourself out of the hole.

Just been for a long run, by a different, less "pleasant" route than my usual one. But it worked, because I'm bored tulipless of my usual, wooded running route. Then did some weights.

Another thing I found was a quote from an agent here: https://www.contractoruk.com/news/00..._may_2024.html - must be a better agent than any I've dealt with in the past year, given that he actually talks to candidates:

A technology recruitment agent who places BI, Data, Analytics and Azure contractors, Billy Hadfield, moved to reassure all types of techie:
“Couldn't tell you how many times I've been asked by candidates, ‘How's the market?’
“The one thing I am telling everyone [is] ‘IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT.’
“Of course, there's always more you can do -- re-write your CV; reach out to old managers, network with recruiters.”

Thank you for good suggestions.

[SchumiStars]

Missed the mortgage payment this month. Things are getting severe.

[SussexSeagull]

Last couple of times out I thought I was never going to talk to anyone about a contract let alone get one up until the point I got another contract. The main change in my 16 or so years is you used to be able to play the numbers game on Jobserve and apply for enough that led you to talk to the agent, then talk to enough agents to get an interview and then do two or three interviews until you got a contract.

In the last two weeks I found one suitable role in Jobserve. Used to be about five a day.

Agents now just come to me. Most contracts aren't going near the job sites anymore.

[rocktronAMP]

Glad it's not just me. I've been on the bench for 6 months now, and I'm finding the effects absolutely horrible, as you describe. I've tried to think up an exit plan, but for some reason - perhaps the current state of the world, or the current state of me - nothing feasible comes to mind. Congrats on getting through this and finally finding a contract! I hope that will be me soon...

ITS. A. NUMBERS. GAME.

Keep pushing every day. Rock Discipline. Get a discipline.

1. Wake up and get just dress in sportsware / activewear
2. go for a run / speed walk 30 minutes minimum
   1. Shower and cleanse your thoughts
3. Breakfast (fruits and muesli / less sugar gunk)
4. Don't watch BBC / SKY / GB news - all of it mostly tulip - fill it with alternatives happier shows (Frasier, Nature documentaries and even YouTube prankster stuff) - don't fill your head with nonsense that you can do little about.
   1. If you do watch news, restrict just 3 minutes of headlines - are they ready to drop the bomb? The likely answer will be NO, so Switch that TV off!
      1. pretend like you are going to work (circa 2019)
   2. If you have a favourite football, rugby or sport team, some of that will help with mood. Get the latest transfer news - avoid the severe tribal toxic stuff on X/Instagram - dont fall into a victim and become one of them: yet another hater.
5. Search the job boards. Chase agents. Find leads. Take notes. Keep a diary.
6. Lunch (low carbs high protein)
7. Networking and research (look at your diary.
   1. Notice any trends in that book / journal
   2. Try a new strategy from your learnings
   3. Get out to a local technology user group (React / Frontend / C++ / Java / Agile / Architecture / C# / Devops ) because it helps with the Face-2-Face interview practice and showing your face might lead to a gig
8. Evening (plenty of healthy options / just avoid process foods and beginnings of sloppy eating)
9. Switch the F off / Family time with kids / Dogs and cats time / Wife time (or Hubby time)
   1. See if there is a cheap weekly (oldies) football group
   2. See if there is AMDRAM group, something in the arts
   3. Maybe volunteering and helping others with expertise in your IT skills can improve your own mind.
   4. Above all find friends and events that are super positive (not negative for your mental health)
      1. Cut off negative people (I had to do that with certain people - talking trash, yakety yak - oh no - pretty severe, but it was worth doing it for me. YMMV even if it is family members

Switch F off at the weekends like normal folk. Think Bob Marley. "You see I don't worry about a thing, because Everything will be alright." Three Little Birds
Treat yourself on Saturdays to a non-healthy option of food and drink. Enjoy Kebab and big lager.
Enjoy your weekends (try, really try).

The rest you probably know. Financial stuff - Cut expensive broadband, Disney+ and reduce your monthly phone plan if finances really get bad.
Get a Nectar Card for Sainsburys, ClubCard for Tescos. Save your dosh. Cut spending. Trade your privacy for discounts. Essential consumer expert advice (Martin Lewis or Vicky Pryce stuff)

I wish I knew this much in 2016!!!!

I would never loaded up on the credit cards and the rest of it. I'd have kept contracting and working from 2016 through out 2020, try not be benched and not be taken for a fool. I'd have bailed on those toxic clients and jumped onto the next outside IR35. I was too F loyal with clients. Digital transformation. Joke formation. I thought I earn £600/£700 per day in April 2020 on the commute on the Avanti to London (pre-COVID) and in a couple of contracts I'd be back to an even keel. YOLO.

[oliverson]

To those who are on the bench - just hang in there. I know it is very hard, easier said than done. Think of it like a break you always wanted. Use the time to Learn something new that you have always wanted to do but were afraid of or couldn't find time. I invested my bench time to learn about stock market (which I was afraid of for a very long time) and up-skilled myself with couple of certifications.

Current trend will change soon. All we can to do is to be ready when it does.

I'm proof of the pudding. SEVENTEEN MONTHS ON THE BENCH and then one day it just changed. Somebody dropped me a line on LinkedIn and that was that. 2.5 years into that contract and another extension about to drop. I'd had a dreadful spell on the bench back in the financial crash but nothing like seventeen months. But that taught me that things would eventually turn around again, and they did. Also taught me it wasn't me, just the market. My credit file had been repaired between the financial crash and covid/IR35/Brexit and so I just took on some debt, did my own thing and tried not to worry. If it happened again, and hopefully it won't, this should be my last contract, I'd do the same all over again. **** it.