Reply to: State of the .NET market (MVC, C#, Azure)

[Steelman]

Deader than dead for me...

Depends what you're tech is.
Seeing same in mine as offshore and consults are taking all the new work

[Gumbo Robot]

Within 2 months the contract market should improve drastically until then its the general election result stopping many clients from hiring. I have been told by several agents not just devs but support as well. Anything non critical is put back until after the general election result & they know who the coalition government will be.


SNP & Labour will not improve this either BTW

Anyone seen any improvement?

Deader than dead for me... Lots of calls about the same 2 or 3 roles, derisory rates etc..

I just renewed a god awful support role for another 6 weekweeks in the hope something would come up in the mean time (on 1 week notice) but the current market seems to have post .com bubble all over it .

WTF is going on?

[SlipTheJab]

I live in South Wales and commute to taunton. Same skill set as my primary skills but also dabble in c++ and JavaScript. .net I find well and truly bobbed with really low rates. If you are good and get your foot in the door you can get reasonable periods of work with renewals as the majority of people who 'know .net' don't!, and I have worked with some terrible C# contract developers. But you are looking at 270-350 for .net in the South Wales/Bristol area. 350-425 for JavaScript stuff. Also computer futures are scatter gunning South Wales and Bristol at the moment with fake jobs at high rates whih is somewhat screwing the figures so watch out for those

Aah good old Computer (No)Futures, as agencies go they are one I try to avoid if at all possible, real roles at low rates and fake ones at high rates, waste of time.

[uk contractor]

But the permanent market seems to be thriving. I would have thought clients would be more likely to hire contractors in times of uncertainty?

But for ages they have been hiring loads of permies as they are wising up to contractors will usually leave & take a better paying role elsewhere!

A lot of these perm roles are not what they seem either its sometimes agencies hiring for 12 months but your perm with the agency (although on 1 week or 1 months notice) not the actual end client so technically yes its perm but not the glittering perm career your hoping for as the agency is just providing a managed service to the end client so your a perm agency worker for 12 months then they can get rid of you with 1 weeks notice!... but the agency obviously only pays you a fraction of the managed service the client is being charged as well

Hays IT have a few of these roles around probably others in the Hays group as well they have so many different brands now

[pauldee]

Within 2 months the contract market should improve drastically until then its the general election result stopping many clients from hiring. I have been told by several agents not just devs but support as well. Anything non critical is put back until after the general election result & they know who the coalition government will be.


SNP & Labour will not improve this either BTW

But the permanent market seems to be thriving. I would have thought clients would be more likely to hire contractors in times of uncertainty?

[uk contractor]

Still completely dead.

1 interview in 6 weeks.

Hoping for a flurry of activity soon..

Within 2 months the contract market should improve drastically until then its the general election result stopping many clients from hiring. I have been told by several agents not just devs but support as well. Anything non critical is put back until after the general election result & they know who the coalition government will be.


SNP & Labour will not improve this either BTW

[Gumbo Robot]

Still completely dead.

1 interview in 6 weeks.

Hoping for a flurry of activity soon..

[Jack Kada]

Given the comments on the current client, do you guys have any advice for someone looking to get their foot in the door for their first .NET C# contract around June time?

Reading this thread would indicate that you should give up on C# and apply to work in McDonalds.

Seriously the people who hang on here are a pessimistic bunch. If you won the lottery they would moan at how little it buys because of inflation

Your best bet is to apply early and persist in your ambitions

[farmerajf]

Given the comments on the current client, do you guys have any advice for someone looking to get their foot in the door for their first .NET C# contract around June time?

[Gumbo Robot]

State of the .NET market (MVC, C#, Azure)

I live in South Wales and commute to taunton. Same skill set as my primary skills but also dabble in c++ and JavaScript. .net I find well and truly bobbed with really low rates. If you are good and get your foot in the door you can get reasonable periods of work with renewals as the majority of people who 'know .net' don't!, and I have worked with some terrible C# contract developers. But you are looking at 270-350 for .net in the South Wales/Bristol area. 350-425 for JavaScript stuff. Also computer futures are scatter gunning South Wales and Bristol at the moment with fake jobs at high rates whih is somewhat screwing the figures so watch out for those

Crikey, that's a schlepp m8 - guess it's not so bad if you're close to the M4. I'm about 45 mikes west of Taunton so it's doable but I only ever seem to get approached about public sector work & the rates are always very poor and/or IR35 unfriendliness.

OP - I posted on here about this very topic the other day. It is very quiet at the moment; I'm hoping its just because of year end - in the 10 years I've been doing this I've never been out of a role in March.

Regarding Indians and .Net - I've found that the rates have held up pretty good. I've had 3 contracts in the SW over the last 18 months and the rate has ranged from £375 - £425 pd which is pretty much ok in my book.

Problem is I'm of a mindset now that I turn stuff down if the rate is under £375 pd. I may have been leading a charmed existence....

Let's face it, all the indians have to have some effect on rates. I've always been amazed that I haven't seen it as yet from my own experience but I guess there must be a tipping point that we will reach at some point in time.

I think I'm lucky in that I have a good CV with a lot if repeat business. I'm also good on the front end web stuff - JavaScript, CSS et al - things that maybe the Indians don't do so much perhaps.

[farmerajf]

Oh dear, it doesn't sound like the market is too good at the moment then? Is it just the rates that have bobbed or the actual number of opportunities? To be honest, for my first contract I'd actually be happy with the low end of those rates (it would still be better than what I'm getting as a permanent lead dev).

[TheLordDave]

I live in South Wales and commute to taunton. Same skill set as my primary skills but also dabble in c++ and JavaScript. .net I find well and truly bobbed with really low rates. If you are good and get your foot in the door you can get reasonable periods of work with renewals as the majority of people who 'know .net' don't!, and I have worked with some terrible C# contract developers. But you are looking at 270-350 for .net in the South Wales/Bristol area. 350-425 for JavaScript stuff. Also computer futures are scatter gunning South Wales and Bristol at the moment with fake jobs at high rates whih is somewhat screwing the figures so watch out for those

[farmerajf]

Hi all,

I'm also considering looking for contracting roles and I have similar skills to the OP.

I wondered how existing contractors are finding the current .NET C# market in 2015, particularly in the Bristol area and if you live in this area, how far you have to travel for a contract?

I currently have a war chest of 4 months, in your experienced opinion, how long should I allow to find my first contract?

[Jaws]

In January I applied for a contract role local to me (Bristol), it was the only role I applied for and I'd applied a day after the role appeared on jobserve. Judging by what I'd read on here (about 100s of applicants per each role) I thought I might even be passed by however the agent called that day, a phone interview was arranged and eventually a face to face on the proviso that the role was not taken while I was on holiday. The role was still available - the client had mentioned how the quality of candidates was not particularly high and following the interview I was offered the gig. I did have some particular skills not mentioned in the job spec which might have swung it for me (such as developing T4 templates).

I ended up taking another gig with an old client. They have been trying for a long time to hire decent .net developers permanently but have said the quality is just not up to scratch.

So the competition may not be as great in this arena as long as you can get an interview.

My skills are .NET + MVC (and history of web forms, with a bit of WPF and WCF thrown in for good measure).

I would say 4 months war chest is a bit on the low side to do this. I had about 6 months worth on my first gig (back in early 2008) and got through that quite quickly due to the 30 days payment terms of the contract and needing to spend some of it on hotel rooms and various fees to set up the company and get insurances, contract reviewed etc.

While a lot of small time office politics is avoidable, some of it certainly isn't, especially when you need to deal with people who are being made redundant or have a dislike for contractors. (Not that you need to play the game as much + it's always nice to know you will be off soon enough).

[eek]

Traitor!

At least I'm not bringing them here to work while pretending to be a British company. Also the women look better there.