Reply to: State of the Market

[willendure]

IR35 gave the contractor market to large, mostly offshore consultancies.

I agree - thats what it really became about. Sunaks wife owned a share of Infosys. As PM he gave out huge numbers of Tier 2 visas. Infosys for £100 million in govt IT contracts. We got stuffed.

[squarepeg]

It might have become more widespread since open source tools began appearing so people could learn it at home but decent automated testers (which admittedly is not all of them) should be prized. By doing this they are offering no encouragement for people to stay doing it or start doing it.

Business and Industry is really doing their best to make sure the IT industry isn't sustainable in this country.

IR35 gave the contractor market to large, mostly offshore consultancies. I think I'm on my last contract and will be going perm soon. Need to catch the last of the AI wave before it crashes.

[SchumiStars]

Need some ideas!

https://youtu.be/QFbskg-LOGQ?si=7QW9pC2fT_5UI8z9

[ladymuck]

If anyone is an IAM Architect, ping me, as I've just been approached on LinkedIn about a role in FS, London, hybrid working, up to £1k a day (suspect that's an inside rate). Not something I could do but happy to pass on people's details.

[Smartie]

Agreed. Over in America, the only reason the Fed chose to cut interest rates was because of the insane cost of repaying the interest on its debt. Core inflation is still rising in America. Also there is a strong argument that lowering rates is just going to result in inflated asset prices again ..... an ever repeating cycle. The harsh truth is that the vast majority of economies will never be able to fully recover from the ZIRP years.

Never is a very long time indeed. Fully recover is a pretty vague term - do you mean back to the height of the economies? There's no rule that says we need to get better off indefinitely. Cheap, abundant energy was the driver for big economic jumps previously - industrial revolution coal, more recently oil. If we get that again, ideally from nuclear fusion we'd no doubt get another rise in living standards. Otherwise, what will drive it? AI needs a lot of power.
This is Western economies of course, SE Asia has improved massively over the last few decades. A billion people taken out of poverty globally.

On the upside, the IFS just published figures showing child poverty in the UK has dropped a lot since 1997 - halved for absolute poverty and 10% down for relative poverty. Unsurprisingly the biggest change was at the start of that period, during the first Blair government.

[mogga71]

Why would BOE start cutting rates when inflation is slowly on the raise again and core inflation is also rising slowly?

Agreed. Over in America, the only reason the Fed chose to cut interest rates was because of the insane cost of repaying the interest on its debt. Core inflation is still rising in America. Also there is a strong argument that lowering rates is just going to result in inflated asset prices again ..... an ever repeating cycle. The harsh truth is that the vast majority of economies will never be able to fully recover from the ZIRP years.

[sadkingbilly]

If the market is asking for .net developers, it means the market is flying.

If the market is asking for Java developers then the market is rising or back to normal.

Currently noone is asking for either language. Which means the market is on its arse.

unless you're not a developer, of course.

[edison]

The article you mention may contain a different methodology. In the way you have described small areas cannot be compared for GDP per capita for many reasons. I assume you haven't explained the methodology correctly.

The article only had data points for less than 20 UK areas ('sub-national areas') and only four were named on the chart - London, Manchester, South East and North East. The calculation was done using GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power parity which is generally regarded as a more accurate comparison between countries.

Irrespective of the size of area chosen, I think it's hard to argue that large swathes of the UK outside London do not compare relatively well to other industrialised countries. The article used Germany, Holland and the US as a comparison.

[dsc]

Early on this year, most of us and you included were not expecting a major recovery this year.

I think the worst is behind his us, and the job market is off its lows, but still very bad.

Things should improve by April 2025. Hiring for the new tax year, the US elections will be over and interest rates will have been cut multiple times by both the BOE and Fed.

7 months is along time...

Why would BOE start cutting rates when inflation is slowly on the raise again and core inflation is also rising slowly?

[Fraidycat]

Also means, that the recovery will be slow. So for anyone thinking that once recovery starts it will be ok, it won't.

Early on this year, most of us and you included were not expecting a major recovery this year.

I think the worst is behind his us, and the job market is off its lows, but still very bad.

Things should improve by April 2025. Hiring for the new tax year, the US elections will be over and interest rates will have been cut multiple times by both the BOE and Fed.

7 months is along time...

[SchumiStars]

Sounds like a rare niche that is worth being in at the moment. Congratulations!

.Net market is usually one at the tail end of the market i.e. it's usually one of the last skills in demand.

If the market is asking for .net developers, it means the market is flying.

If the market is asking for Java developers then the market is rising or back to normal.

Currently noone is asking for either language. Which means the market is on its arse.

Also means, that the recovery will be slow. So for anyone thinking that once recovery starts it will be ok, it won't.

It means the rates will be low. I mean low. As there is an oversaturation of benched developers, like me, who will work for next to nothing.

The freshies, would have been promised jobs with high salaries only to find a dead market, tulip weather and rising rental market.

[SussexSeagull]

Just seen another role in Knutsford £251 - £261 inside for Test Automation. Barclays really taking the p1ss it seems.

It might have become more widespread since open source tools began appearing so people could learn it at home but decent automated testers (which admittedly is not all of them) should be prized. By doing this they are offering no encouragement for people to stay doing it or start doing it.

Business and Industry is really doing their best to make sure the IT industry isn't sustainable in this country.

[SussexSeagull]

I totally agree. I have spent a lot of time upskilling to C#, .NET, Cloud... (which I have actively used in my previous contracts) and all approaches bar 1 have been for Embedded devices which was surprising to me.

Sounds like a rare niche that is worth being in at the moment. Congratulations!

[rocktronAMP]

Barclays have been taking the p1ss for over a decade. Everyone took the Barclays gigs to fill a hole and then left when they got something better. They changed the contract to no notice, i.e. could not give notice on the gig, to try stem the tide of people coming and going and did attempt to follow this as far as they could (for free) with contractors that did just give notice and leave even though they were in breach. Wonder if anything has changed on that front.

Is this the special Barclay digital centre next to Knutsford. Gowd naww! I thought it was sexy and modern in 2012/2013 when I had a very short 2 day visit. The black Dell developer laptop were evil horrid, impossible to code, poor Intel chips and just about enough RAM. Photoshop? forget it? I was contracting for Barclays Retail in the Docklands. I had to visit Knutsford for a projection initiation and relationship building. They paid for my expenses, hotel and food for 2 nights from London to Crewe and back on a first class train seat.
Like all of these new fangled digital agile station brain works, the new idea dies slowly and evitably with the lack of belief and retention of staff and poor culture.

Is Tesco Digital thing still going happening in Welyn Garden City? (Glad I rejected that one)
How is Sky in Osterley still going? ( I hear bad news; never had the pleasure)
What about RS Electronics in Corby? ( It was just ok in 2017, but I didn't renew and found somewhere else)

[eek]

Maybe, like for the solution architect role that eek posted above, its for two positions, they could be trying to get two from the budget of one, in both cases.

Its p1ss take but on the positive side it provides some income for two benched contractors rather than just one..

Nope it's someone in Barclay's HR department going we can abuse contractors by paying the least amount we can get away with.

They are one of the few companies I won't go near at all I'm careful when North West Finance jobs appear to not go nears Knutsford even if it does mean I turn down MBNA/M&S as I've accidentally done in the past.