Reply to: State of the Market

[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.

[quackhandle]

You clearly haven't experienced how much money companies can waste with on-premise kit to change their mind a year later.

Although I do agree on paper on-premise should be cheaper than cloud. Like a permanent employee should be cheaper than a contractor.

With over twenty years in this contracting game I think I have.

qh

[quackhandle]

My post was 11% sarcasm, 80% tongue-in-cheek and 9% butterscotch ripple.

qh

[Hairlocks]

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

You clearly haven't experienced how much money companies can waste with on-premise kit to change their mind a year later.

Although I do agree on paper on-premise should be cheaper than cloud. Like a permanent employee should be cheaper than a contractor.

[northernladuk]

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

To be fair I remember a lot of people saying the same thing 10 years ago when the boom started so it's a bit way overdue if that is going to start happening.

A lot of people also said the same about the quality of offshoring companies and it would all come back onshore... which it hasn't.

Fingers crossed on both... BIDI

[quackhandle]

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

[dsc]

Im seeing 90% of roles with 'state salary requirements' - 10 years ago it was maybe 10%. Times have changed. How long before its 35k for a senior XYZ role in London?

I try and put 'market rates' if theres no integer only check

Woman actually called me about a role I applied for with this approach - 'you put market rates - the role is paying £55k 6 months FTC'

I said can you do £60k? - She said no

I remember UK used to be the odd one out as it simply said what's possible in a position with some of Europe asking for salary reqs. Now it seems pretty much whole of Europe has this and UK is also playing the "how low can you go" game. 35k isn't that crazy nowadays but for regular, non senior tech people and yes even in London. It's a bloody joke.

I also had a initial job interview and I asked about salary range, got asked the same tulipe "well how much are you thinking" and it turned out I was only 5k off, but even that sounded like "well maybe it's doable, but I'm not sure". If 5k leeway is too much to swallow I bloody give up.

[6128k]

Oddly my rate has been quite good over the last year and I would have had a quick turnaround between two contracts had sign off and Christmas not got in the way. In both instances the agent came to me though.

I will probably be out for six months next time out but maybe we are beginning to see the contractor field thin out in some sectors?

Lucky to have found a new role after just 1 week on the bench (Outside again), but my rate is now £100 less than last time I worked at the client back in 2019!

[Fraidycat]

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

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Care to share the listing? That has to be a mistake, I can’t recall ever having seen any inside contract that pays £120 a day!

Working backwards from net pay, that translates into a PAYE salary of around 21k or so which (even for a 35 hour week) is just above min wage!

Yes it's vanished (the listing I saw) - it's appeared on totaljobs as £660 a day.

[SussexSeagull]

The rates are actually good, even though market is slow, which I know seems anomalous.
I'm at an FS client and there are plenty of people on 1000+ Umbrella rate (not me I hasten to add). The posh coffee shops (coffee 4 to 15 quid!) are doing a roaring trade.

it depends hugely on previous experience specific to that client, if you have it they pay top dollar. Worth more than 20 years at the fabled "top tier" IBs

Oddly my rate has been quite good over the last year and I would have had a quick turnaround between two contracts had sign off and Christmas not got in the way. In both instances the agent came to me though.

I will probably be out for six months next time out but maybe we are beginning to see the contractor field thin out in some sectors?

[sreed]

I applied to 100 jobs using a resume with the name, "Kismma D. Nhuhts" and I got 29 interviews.

https://twitter.com/JerryJHLee/statu...84920593055763

Takeaway - As long as you have big name companies on your CV nobody reads the rest - that or interviews are much easier to come by in San Francisco

Maybe Ill try and apply for a few stateside to test

That Twitter thread made my day, lol

[sreed]

Got a message from an agent in San Diego - they need a Workday UK payroll person (this is my niche) for an immediate start to do 50 hours a month. That'd be great if I was free but I have 3 month notice period and he didn't mention rates.

Meanwhile there's a gig on linkedin - 6 months 3 days a week in Brentford 2 days remote for £600. Looked great until I notice the £600 is a week, inside.

I don't know if there are suddenly a lot of cheap contractors around or clients are just being weird.

Care to share the listing? That has to be a mistake, I can’t recall ever having seen any inside contract that pays £120 a day!

Working backwards from net pay, that translates into a PAYE salary of around 21k or so which (even for a 35 hour week) is just above min wage!

[tsmith]

Agents / clients might be trying it on to see how low they can go, if there's a lot of people who are desperate for anything, someone will eventually bite. Besides that seems to be the case with perm positions in mainland Europe, they open up a perm position, post a job ad with a set of skills and have a budget in mind, then they ask you how much you'd want to earn, if you go outside the budget, they simply stick you on the list of "too expensive for now". If they can't get anyone, they increase the budget (assuming they can do so), if they get people with partial skill matches, they look at what is crucial and whether it's enough. If it is, they fill the position with a reasonable skills to pay ration and call it a day.

Im seeing 90% of roles with 'state salary requirements' - 10 years ago it was maybe 10%. Times have changed. How long before its 35k for a senior XYZ role in London?

I try and put 'market rates' if theres no integer only check

Woman actually called me about a role I applied for with this approach - 'you put market rates - the role is paying £55k 6 months FTC'

I said can you do £60k? - She said no