Reply to: State of the Market

[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...

[edison]

I'm still waiting for all those contractors who rolled over to permanent roles post-2020 doing the exact same thing they were doing as contractors for years to be investigated by HMRC

The doom-mongerers on here were absolutely adamant that HMRC had them in their sights, along with those who closed companies and then reopened a year later when they got OIR35 contracts. I'm working with two such contractors now, and neither of them knew about that rule nor particularly cared when I told them.

I was one of those who was put off switching from an OIR35 role to a perm Head of IT role at the time.

Even though I've done a couple of very interesting gigs since, I do sometimes regret not taking it.

Having said that, about two years later my perm replacement had left and one of the other members of the team stepped up to do the role. It then got downgraded to an IT Manager role.

It's so hard to try and predict which way things might turn out in the longer term.

[northernladuk]

I'm still waiting for all those contractors who rolled over to permanent roles post-2020 doing the exact same thing they were doing as contractors for years to be investigated by HMRC

The doom-mongerers on here were absolutely adamant that HMRC had them in their sights, along with those who closed companies and then reopened a year later when they got OIR35 contracts. I'm working with two such contractors now, and neither of them knew about that rule nor particularly cared when I told them.

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.

[ensignia]

If you're a single / one of a few "contractors" at a client doing long stints I very much doubt hmrc will ever see this / care. They seem to go after large clients were loads of people do "contracting" when in fact they are all permies, the chance of winning something there are larger as there's simply more people affected (especially as you can threat the client with massive costs and they will bail).

I know a few people who went perm to "outside" at the same client, worked like this for years, then closes their ltds and had zero problems. You'd think they would get spotted straight away, especially when closing their ltd as that's the moment to do an overview, but perhaps that's also automated and not one person gives a tulip?

I'm still waiting for all those contractors who rolled over to permanent roles post-2020 doing the exact same thing they were doing as contractors for years to be investigated by HMRC

The doom-mongerers on here were absolutely adamant that HMRC had them in their sights, along with those who closed companies and then reopened a year later when they got OIR35 contracts. I'm working with two such contractors now, and neither of them knew about that rule nor particularly cared when I told them.

[northernladuk]

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.

[Bluenose]

This years April bounce doest seem to have been as strong or long as last years.

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.

[jamesbrown]

If you're a single / one of a few "contractors" at a client doing long stints I very much doubt hmrc will ever see this / care. They seem to go after large clients were loads of people do "contracting" when in fact they are all permies, the chance of winning something there are larger as there's simply more people affected (especially as you can threat the client with massive costs and they will bail).

I know a few people who went perm to "outside" at the same client, worked like this for years, then closes their ltds and had zero problems. You'd think they would get spotted straight away, especially when closing their ltd as that's the moment to do an overview, but perhaps that's also automated and not one person gives a tulip?

Agree for two reasons, both the reason you state (the most important reason) and because longevity has always been a weak pointer (requiring a change in WPs to become part and parcel). Since the introduction of Chapter 10, the incentive to police companies that use a large number of contractors is much stronger because WPs will be correlated across those contractors and the ROI is much higher. Target the weak spot that connects many contractors. This is why HMRC is simultaneously pursuing Chapter 9 (another route to pursuing many contractors at once where the accountant/MSCP is the weak spot). The only exception is likely to be high profile individuals, such as TV personalities, where there's a good ROI in terms of publicity. This is all completely logical.

[dsc]

Had a chat to someone today who has done 14 years at same client! Half in and half out.
May as well carve your GPS coordinates on the Revenue head office windows!

Lots of people returning to old clients (direct, not using agents) having tasted the waters outside and found them to be cold, murky and full of sharks!

If you're a single / one of a few "contractors" at a client doing long stints I very much doubt hmrc will ever see this / care. They seem to go after large clients were loads of people do "contracting" when in fact they are all permies, the chance of winning something there are larger as there's simply more people affected (especially as you can threat the client with massive costs and they will bail).

I know a few people who went perm to "outside" at the same client, worked like this for years, then closes their ltds and had zero problems. You'd think they would get spotted straight away, especially when closing their ltd as that's the moment to do an overview, but perhaps that's also automated and not one person gives a tulip?

[hungry_hog]

Had a chat to someone today who has done 14 years at same client! Half in and half out.
May as well carve your GPS coordinates on the Revenue head office windows!

Lots of people returning to old clients (direct, not using agents) having tasted the waters outside and found them to be cold, murky and full of sharks!

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Once companies work out how much they are being ripped off for Cloud hosting/compared to the performance they are getting they'll be all going back to on premise in next 1/2 years so lots of work there.

qh

The accountants running the show don't care how much it costs as long as someone can give them a 3/5 year figure for it - hence cloud everything.

ETA

Of course a lot of enterprise systems like Workday aren't available as on-premise apps.