Reply to: State of the Market

[tsmith]

IT has been in slump for 20 months now, started middle of 2022. What industry is that linked in thread about, have they only started to really feel it now?

Thats to be expected from the 18 month delay from interest rates hikes to really hit the economy, but the IT contract market saw the effect after just 6 months.

Although 18 months ago interest rates were only 3%, so thats what the wider economy is feeling at the moment, just 3% interest rates, it might still require another six to nine months before the economy feels the full effect of 5% interest rates.

Getting to the end of April, and been looking since end of November last year.

had only a handful of calls, 2 interviews, 1 turned into an offer but I turned it down as the rate was just insulting.

What a dramatic change from being back to back with no gaps for the 10+ years previous.

Things need to change though right? The work itself didn't just fall off a cliff, it will need doing eventually

Dont see UK interest rates really making that much difference in the UK. Maybe in the USA which is where most of the innovation happens in IT.

Its the end of an era I believe. The amount of bespoke IT work the vast majority of companies need doing in house has been dropping for a good while and the number of candidates has exploded and theres about to be 3 generations of people in the industry - where back in the day it was one maybe 2 generations

With a supply and demand imbalance companies will just hire cheap perm or lower day rates to the point there wont be much point being a contractor. Which is already happening

• Generation X (circa 1965 to 1980)
• Millennial Generation (circa 1981 to 1996)
• Generation Z (circa 1997 to 2012)

SAAS industry growth is insane
"Since 2015, the SaaS industry grew from $31.4 billion to an estimated $1617.1 billion in 2022. That equates to over 5x growth in only seven years."

But again I believe that wont generate significant enough demand for a return to the state of the market in the UK as before with lots of contractors required.

Implementing big bespoke SAAS eg Salesforce will be done in the main cheap offshore locations if possible - with maybe a few onsite guys as contractors

[dsc]

[...]Things need to change though right? The work itself didn't just fall off a cliff, it will need doing eventually

Sure but you don't need people on £600+ doing it, if you have a desperate work force you can drive the rates super low.

[ResistanceFighter]

Getting to the end of April, and been looking since end of November last year.

had only a handful of calls, 2 interviews, 1 turned into an offer but I turned it down as the rate was just insulting.

What a dramatic change from being back to back with no gaps for the 10+ years previous.

Things need to change though right? The work itself didn't just fall off a cliff, it will need doing eventually

[BritishLad88]

Daily mail headline from today (DM has a paywall now, so i wont link it):
Are these the laziest WFH staff in Britain? HMRC civil servants are gardening, taking the dog for a walk and playing video games while 'at work'

it's the new norm. times have changed. don't see what's the fuss all about.

[WTFH]

Of course DM "Journalists" are prime examples of productive, efficient and industrious workers. tulipting on a bit of paper and faxing it to head office every day

You left out the bit about non-dom/offshore/trust status of the ownership of that paper.

[Unix]

Daily mail headline from today (DM has a paywall now, so i wont link it):
Are these the laziest WFH staff in Britain? HMRC civil servants are gardening, taking the dog for a walk and playing video games while 'at work'

Of course DM "Journalists" are prime examples of productive, efficient and industrious workers. tulipting on a bit of paper and faxing it to head office every day

[sreed]

Daily mail headline from today (DM has a paywall now, so i wont link it):
Are these the laziest WFH staff in Britain? HMRC civil servants are gardening, taking the dog for a walk and playing video games while 'at work'

Lol. If you included a leisurely brunch (at home), laundry and a trip to the gym, that sounds like my other half and I at home, working hard in FS

[northernladuk]

Daily mail headline from today (DM has a paywall now, so i wont link it):
Are these the laziest WFH staff in Britain? HMRC civil servants are gardening, taking the dog for a walk and playing video games while 'at work'

I saw that. I was outraged and then realised I'd done all of those today

[edison]

This years bounce bounced lasted just a couple of weeks. Jobserve went toward the high 46,000, but currently around 32,000.

If I recall correctly, last years bounces lasted more than a month.

I think market sentiment changed a week or two ago as it became clear that interest rate cuts have been delayed by many months.

It's already down to 30,000 since you posted this!

Perm roles seem to have picked up a bit in the last few weeks but I've never seen the market so bad for contracting in my niches. There seems to be no respite on that front.

[Fraidycat]

As every other branch of government is creaking at the moment it is probably fair to imagine that the HMRC are the same.

Daily mail headline from today (DM has a paywall now, so i wont link it):
Are these the laziest WFH staff in Britain? HMRC civil servants are gardening, taking the dog for a walk and playing video games while 'at work'

[SussexSeagull]

I'm actually very curious how easy it is for HMRC to check this. If you are direct to a client, then become perm at the same client, perhaps rather easy, but going via agency to then going via umbrella or perm? They would need some info from the agency on who the client was, then check with the umbrella to who they work with and connect the dots, perhaps it's not that simple? At the end of the day we are talking about HMRC who decided to turn off their call lines when trying to solve long waiting times, so...

As every other branch of government is creaking at the moment it is probably fair to imagine that the HMRC are the same.

[SussexSeagull]

Must admit I'm very nervous now. Been virtually end to end for last 10 years. Long'ish story but...

Was 5 weeks out of gig last year and got a big messy business re-org gig. Ended but they gave me a 6 weeks notice. Took all 6 weeks to find something, another big re-org. In both those stints it was very dry. I just got an alert from jobserve which I'd forgotten to turn off but its the first one I've had in three weeks. Granted I have a rather tight criteria on the alert but still, three weeks of nothing. Even the one that pinged wasn't suitable. I do ignore all inside gigs with north to south commute for obvious reasons so looking back I've been very very lucky with these two gigs. I can't rely on big re-orgs for end to end work.

Going to put all my alerts back on just to keep an eye on the market but I say I've been lucky to get these two and if I hadn't I'd have struggled badly. Counting every day billing as a blessing at the moment and dreading the end of this one. Strange times.

Admittedly I tended not to look for a new contract until the old one finished to give me a break but I think that is a fairly typical experience now. I tend to find it ends when someone in my network approaches me with a suitable role and there isn't an awful lot you can do to hurry the process up.

[Fraidycat]

I don't think there was one, it's too early to write off the entire year but the UK economy is on life support.

This years bounce bounced lasted just a couple of weeks. Jobserve went toward the high 46,000, but currently around 32,000.

If I recall correctly, last years bounces lasted more than a month.

I think market sentiment changed a week or two ago as it became clear that interest rate cuts have been delayed by many months.

[jamesbrown]

I'm actually very curious how easy it is for HMRC to check this. If you are direct to a client, then become perm at the same client, perhaps rather easy, but going via agency to then going via umbrella or perm? They would need some info from the agency on who the client was, then check with the umbrella to who they work with and connect the dots, perhaps it's not that simple? At the end of the day we are talking about HMRC who decided to turn off their call lines when trying to solve long waiting times, so...

Oh, they have the information when there's an agency in the chain, it's just presumably a lower priority when compared to the ROI from targeting end clients with many contractors. OTOH, it's mostly speculation (partly informed by what QDOS and similar companies who represent contractors can relay) because there's no public record of what investigations have been conducted and what the outcomes were (unless they got to tribunal).

[dsc]

To be fair I was one of them and did think something was going to happen but it appears not. The letters to GSK were a sign something could be starting but that just disappeared. That said the other big pharma along with other large companies that were renowned for keeping outside contractors for years are all majority inside now so no real point HMRC wading in anymore. They more or less achieved what they wanted it seems.

I'm actually very curious how easy it is for HMRC to check this. If you are direct to a client, then become perm at the same client, perhaps rather easy, but going via agency to then going via umbrella or perm? They would need some info from the agency on who the client was, then check with the umbrella to who they work with and connect the dots, perhaps it's not that simple? At the end of the day we are talking about HMRC who decided to turn off their call lines when trying to solve long waiting times, so...