Reply to: State of the Market

[sadkingbilly]

I just hear a list of events that will apparently need to happen before a recovery starts that happen then a recovery doesn't start.

I am not sure Labour winning a GE then producing a budget that didn't go down well with some in business or a Trump win should have been that surprising to anyone.

sorry i was asking the prophet of doom the question

[Cookielove]

It really gets my goat!! lazy agents don't want to put in any work...they want the candidates to do their job for them...perm role job you submit your CV, then they want a one pager covering letter highlighting a match with your skills to the job....surely that is what the CV is showing your skills...so that is a duplicate a covering letter spelling it out....then they want a document uploaded as to why you are interested in this role! This is so outdated....i'm applying = I need the money/a job...

LinkedIn is a pile of tulip! no meaningful jobs/searches and just more sob stories by the day....

[SussexSeagull]

what expected recovery?
expected by who, exactly?

I just hear a list of events that will apparently need to happen before a recovery starts that happen then a recovery doesn't start.

I am not sure Labour winning a GE then producing a budget that didn't go down well with some in business or a Trump win should have been that surprising to anyone.

[SussexSeagull]

That's what they said about coal, steel, ships, etc. etc.

Our lack of energy independence has caused problems in the last few years due to energy bills rising. Putin has used gas supplies as a weapon previously. As for the other two we won't know until we ever reach a point that we could have down with still having a steel or ship industry.

[SchumiStars]

That's what they said about coal, steel, ships, etc. etc.

TBF, most of those have all been outsourced. Face it boys we are clock faces in a digital world

[sadkingbilly]

When the recovery will happen is now uncertain, i was expecting April next year but the budget has thrown a spanner into the expected recovery.

what expected recovery?
expected by who, exactly?

[dsc]

The HMRC will get what they wanted. It's just they should have been careful what they wished for.

Isn't this exactly what HMRC wanted? they were always the ones thinking if you are a contractor you should pay the same tax as a permie not understanding that if you were a permie your salary would be half of your rate as a contractor thus tax would be lower than what you pay now. So now they just have a load of low paid permies, tax income must be down, but they have achieved what they wanted in the first place.

[Smartie]

UK Plc losing the ability to produce its own software is nothing short of a national scandal and is placing us at the mercy of geopolitical trends. And no, I don’t think I am exaggerating.

That's what they said about coal, steel, ships, etc. etc.

[tjccjt01]

This is so true, not only does it ignore your keywords, it seem to ignore any filters you set (permie or contract). It also allows you to click "don't show me this again" and then merrily show it to you on the next search.

Then there's the multiple "women in coding" and LGBTQ alliance roles. Should I even bother applying for those if I'm not a woman or gay?

The whole thing is an absolute mess, but slightly better than Jobserve which seems to simply have no jobs.

I suspect that Jobserve is applying search terms correctly and is showing no jobs when there are no jobs. LI is throwing back anything it can find to keep you on the site.

T

[SussexSeagull]

Software development as a entirety is much easier than it was before. We live in a world of shiny, fast, brand new.

Were before it was old, cumbersome systems that noone knew anything about and developers were required to make changes to it. Now it's a case of everything in the last period to have been brought up to date and those old systems are more reliable, less bugs and more maintanable.

There is no requirement for £500pd software developers, when Tata can give you an entire Dev team for the same cost.

It's horrible to think about but in essence there does not seem to be any recovery in the foreseeable future. We will be typing the same things Dec 2025, hoping, praying for a silver bullet.

For all the shiny new toys and methodologies that have appeared over the last 30 years, I don’t think software development has actually got any quicker because end users now have higher expectations and still have a tendency to change their mind.

Not really a silver bullet but I am not convinced there is a lot of software development projects happening full stop, either in house or off shore. If that ever changes, and one would hope pent up demand must become a factor at some point, we shall see how they are done.

Although to address your point, I (and I suspect others) won’t be asking the same question in December 2025 because I would have to be off doing something else then as I need to earn some money.

UK Plc losing the ability to produce its own software is nothing short of a national scandal and is placing us at the mercy of geopolitical trends. And no, I don’t think I am exaggerating.

[SchumiStars]

Software development as a entirety is much easier than it was before. We live in a world of shiny, fast, brand new.

Were before it was old, cumbersome systems that noone knew anything about and developers were required to make changes to it. Now it's a case of everything in the last period to have been brought up to date and those old systems are more reliable, less bugs and more maintanable.

There is no requirement for £500pd software developers, when Tata can give you an entire Dev team for the same cost.

It's horrible to think about but in essence there does not seem to be any recovery in the foreseeable future. We will be typing the same things Dec 2025, hoping, praying for a silver bullet.

[SussexSeagull]

I can definitively say that I am unsure. I still suspect that the main problems are business not wanting to invest in new projects and outsourcing. Holding off for AI to make everything outdated in the near future feels a bit premature at the moment.

I work in testing and it has taken until now for a lot of organisations to embrace automated testing tools. Instinctively it feels a bit early to say the same people are piling into dev ops or fully embracing AI. Business tends to be small c conservative about such things.

Although I might be wrong.

[Fraidycat]

I do hope you are right. But I don't really see the rationale where thats coming from except "it goes in cycles".

When the recovery will happen is now uncertain, i was expecting April next year but the budget has thrown a spanner into the expected recovery.


Todays news:

UK business confidence at lowest level since pandemic after tax-raising budget, the Institute of Directors says hit to private sector will undermine growth and public finances.

The Institute of Directors’ economic confidence index, which measures business leader optimism in prospects for the UK economy, fell to -65 in November from -52 in October, the fourth monthly fall in a row.

That is the lowest reading since the record low of -69 in April 2020, and the second worst since the index began in July 2016.


https://www.theguardian.com/business...raising-budget

[CodeCobbler]

The flood gates will re open at some point.

The £500 a day contract will return in huge numbers like before because £500 a day is cheaper than ever, its worth just what £350 was worth in 2012.

Not a lot of money these days, and not worth jumping to contracting for if anyone has a good perm package. But for contractors looking to retire within in the next 10 years its still not bad.

I do hope you are right. But I don't really see the rationale where thats coming from except "it goes in cycles".

[CodeCobbler]

It's been 2yrs. I have never, ever seen it like this bad before for so long. I am begining to believe, that the market has permentantly changed now.

It's quite a possibility. There is nothing to suggest that IT will permentantly grow and demand will always be fluctuate.

In the 90s, my dad used to run video shops which were run out with even blockbuster coming and going. Then it was computer shops. So I am aware nothing lasts forever and perhaps contracting including software development has run it's course.

Perhaps it might be better to find an alternative income stream, I was hoping to retire in a couple of years anyway.

I also feel this way. I think the comparison between blockbuster and IT is an apt one. Who are we to claim we know that tech trends "go in cycles", nay, we don't have any idea. Its a market thats existed for so few years we have no way of knowing. I think its over. Maybe just maybe with the US elections there is some new found confidence in tech, but also so is cost cutting. Who can say really?

Thats good you only have to see out a couple more years. But I am at least another 10 years off retirement so I can't think about that just yet.