Reply to: State of the market

[BolshieBastard]

I see the site homepage has an article about current demand for contractors:

Rise in confidence reduces IT contractor demand :: Contractor UK

I left the contract market at the end of last year to concentrate on 'Plan B'. Nonetheless I've been keeping an eye on things in case 'Plan B' doesn't work out. Having contracted in the .NET and then SharePoint arena since 1999 my perception is that things currently are almost as bad as they were in 2003. In the London / Home Counties area there seems to be a moderate level of activity at best, and rates are down on what they were even a couple of years ago.

Will things improve again? I have no idea. Logic says they should do, but if we're in for a prolonged period of low economic growth (in the west not just the UK) there is likely to be a surplus of labour globally. The permie market may be healthier, but even there the salaries on offer in IT dev / architecture don't look too exciting with many jobs paying £30k to £40k whereas before they were closer to £50k to £60k.

I take all these website pronouncements of an increase in the market with a pinch of salt. Outside of London and the SE, I just dont see it.

Im getting bombarded with mails from agents asking me if Im still looking as they are doing mailshots of companies with cv's and could I let them know where i have interviewed or applied for so as not to create 'problems'!

Yeah, ok.

Wednesday, I thought there were signs of the market finally starting to move as I had contact from 4 agents regarding different roles (for a change!). However, Thursday was back to normal with no one suitable role on jobswerve, jobsh*te, mongster et al.

For the first time in over 15 years, I've applied for a permie role, the market for me is that bad.

[twocontract]

I see the site homepage has an article about current demand for contractors:

Rise in confidence reduces IT contractor demand :: Contractor UK

I left the contract market at the end of last year to concentrate on 'Plan B'. Nonetheless I've been keeping an eye on things in case 'Plan B' doesn't work out. Having contracted in the .NET and then SharePoint arena since 1999 my perception is that things currently are almost as bad as they were in 2003. In the London / Home Counties area there seems to be a moderate level of activity at best, and rates are down on what they were even a couple of years ago.

Will things improve again? I have no idea. Logic says they should do, but if we're in for a prolonged period of low economic growth (in the west not just the UK) there is likely to be a surplus of labour globally. The permie market may be healthier, but even there the salaries on offer in IT dev / architecture don't look too exciting with many jobs paying £30k to £40k whereas before they were closer to £50k to £60k.

[BlasterBates]

The tricky part with multi-threading (as with a lot of things) is that there is so much that they can ask you about that it is hard to have all of the answers in your head.

I had the same problem years ago when being phone interviewed. Was asked what happened inside 'new'. I told him, he asked what happened inside 'malloc'. I told him what happened but he kept pressing for lower and lower details until I explained that I had never needed to delve inside malloc, I knew how to use it and that was all I had ever needed to know.

He failed me for not being able to answer 'basic C++ questions'. It turns out that before he got at job at that bank he had worked on writing compilers so what was basic in his knowledge base was unknown in mine.

Having done quite a few banking interviews I find it´s only "straightforward" in superboom times, and that is because you can have so many interviews in a short space of time that you can become "good enough" after some practice. In the current market, an out of work contractor ex-colleague of mine has had two interviews in 5 months.

The problem is there is an awful lot of people competing, you have contractors, lower paid contractors trying to get higher paid work, permies and out of work permies.

You can also see this in their list of demands in the skill profile, in good times it reduces to C++, Unix or Windows and a database, that´s it.

[MyUserName]

Well the thing is I´ve been looking at these jobs, and what I see is that the focus varies from job to job (reading their job description) on one contract it´s Grid Computing on another, multi-threading on another it´s credit risk, and even though multi-threading might sound as though it would be straight forward I heard from one contractor that it´s very difficult.

The tricky part with multi-threading (as with a lot of things) is that there is so much that they can ask you about that it is hard to have all of the answers in your head.

I had the same problem years ago when being phone interviewed. Was asked what happened inside 'new'. I told him, he asked what happened inside 'malloc'. I told him what happened but he kept pressing for lower and lower details until I explained that I had never needed to delve inside malloc, I knew how to use it and that was all I had ever needed to know.

He failed me for not being able to answer 'basic C++ questions'. It turns out that before he got at job at that bank he had worked on writing compilers so what was basic in his knowledge base was unknown in mine.

[stek]

State of the market

I just spotted a £60k pa work from home permie role, sure it's ECM but I'll never know now as they aren't considering contractors!

[BolshieBastard]

It might or it might not, I know a few C++ programmers in finance who go for interviews but don´t get very far, it might be improving but quite a few of these roles seem to be "time wasters" i.e. lots of agencies chasing a few roles and then subjecting candidates to very difficult tests, and they do have a lot of experience. It reminds me of 2003 when there were few roles and they were very picky.

I had a timewaster interview not long ago.

Agent said it would be a high level interview lasting about 30 minutes. He wasnt kidding! the two kids sent to interview me were ill prepared, didnt seem to know what questions to ask and clearly didnt work together as an interview team.

The feed back i got was best candidate but they wanted someone living closer! WTF, Im only 18 miles away!

I've since seen been made aware they re advertised for 2 permies at 25k pa! IMO, my interview was a complete waste of time if they really wanted a couple of junior permies.

[BlasterBates]

Well the thing is I´ve been looking at these jobs, and what I see is that the focus varies from job to job (reading their job description) on one contract it´s Grid Computing on another, multi-threading on another it´s credit risk, and even though multi-threading might sound as though it would be straight forward I heard from one contractor that it´s very difficult.

[MyUserName]

It might or it might not, I know a few C++ programmers in finance who go for interviews but don´t get very far, it might be improving but quite a few of these roles seem to be "time wasters" i.e. lots of agencies chasing a few roles and then subjecting candidates to very difficult tests.

Really? That would suck. I went as far as taking a test and doing a telephone interview even though I did not want the perm jobs. I wanted to keep my interview skills up to date and see what tests/questions are popular now - they were both pretty fierce.

[BlasterBates]

It might or it might not, I know a few C++ programmers in finance who go for interviews but don´t get very far, it might be improving but quite a few of these roles seem to be "time wasters" i.e. lots of agencies chasing a few roles and then subjecting candidates to very difficult tests, and they do have a lot of experience. It reminds me of 2003 when there were few roles and they were very picky.

[MyUserName]

The C++ finance market seems okay but only if you are very good (years of experience in associated technologies, domain knowledge etc).

I am not looking but I have recently been approached about a role at the 600pd mark, up to and including the company name and job spec.

I also got approached about 2 permie roles, one at 80k and one at 70+ bonuses. Once again including company names and specs.

[stek]

State of the market

Depends on what you do. For BAU Service Desk, it's looking terrible right now. The contracts on offer are either FAR too low with rates (to the point where permie is actually more appealing) or ghost specs.

Hopefully it picks up soon. I'd rather not go back to low-paying permie roles. At this rate though, I may have no choice.

I'm on a project that has to be implemented by next Feb, by the Euro countries (SEPA) - non Euro inc UK next by 2016, hoping that'll see me through till then anyway...

[NDawg]

This thread was started in October 2010. What is the state of the contractor market now?

Depends on what you do. For BAU Service Desk, it's looking terrible right now. The contracts on offer are either FAR too low with rates (to the point where permie is actually more appealing) or ghost specs.

Hopefully it picks up soon. I'd rather not go back to low-paying permie roles. At this rate though, I may have no choice.

[BolshieBastard]

Well, I've applied for my first permie position. Think that says a lot. Just had a gadge at my cv for 2011 through to today.

I worked all through 2011, switching contracts in the Autumn with only 1 week between the roles. 2012, I worked through to June, picked up a new contract after a 6 week break to Jan this year. So that's 2 full years on 3 contracts with only a 7 week break.

Since Jan this year, zilch and we are into May. Jobs appear, phone agents and all you get is VM, leave a message and no callback, rinse and repeat to boredom.

[BlasterBates]

A lot worse than it was in 2011, when things looked quite bright.

[eek]

This thread was started in October 2010. What is the state of the contractor market now?

how long is a piece of string. It depends on location, skillset ......