Reply to: Finding rates at £550+

[edison]

I think there are a few things to consider: Agents are always looking for the next wave of permies that think £300 a day is a great rate so they advertise to attract that type of person. Meanwhile the quiet back channels where they call up established guys is where the money truly flows well. I started poking around this week as there is a good chance that I am going to get the hoof in March thanks to a re-org and several really awful projects getting mothballed or canned altogether. So far the rates on offer from agents looking for my availability have been 650 - 750 day for infrastructure architecture type work.

That's a good point about many high paid roles effectively being kept for well established contractors and perhaps not advertised.

It also struck me that the oft quoted maxim of annual salary divided by 1000 being a roughly equivalent hourly contract rate starts to break down once you get towards £600/day. According to this formula £550/day equates to over £73k p.a. Look in a typical decent sized IT department and work out how many people are on at least that salary, probably not that many.

Above about £70-80k salary, roles typically have a much higher proportion of non-salary benefits, in other words, there are unlikely to be many roles anywhere over £550/day unless you are a senior manager, have a very in demand skills set like enterprise architecture or work in IB.

[bobspud]

I think you're right. When I look at Jobserve I get depressed, thinking about the cut I'll have to take to my rate. Then an agent calls me and I realise I can command the same, or a higher, rate than before still.

I think there are a few things to consider: Agents are always looking for the next wave of permies that think £300 a day is a great rate so they advertise to attract that type of person. Meanwhile the quiet back channels where they call up established guys is where the money truly flows well. I started poking around this week as there is a good chance that I am going to get the hoof in March thanks to a re-org and several really awful projects getting mothballed or canned altogether. So far the rates on offer from agents looking for my availability have been 650 - 750 day for infrastructure architecture type work.

The fact that programme managers are showing lower than other skills is just an indication of the number of guys on the bench. I have a couple of good PM's in my client that are struggling to get over 400 a day. I would never recommend contracting to my PM mates.

[Ticktock]

Was looking at itjobswatch the other day and if the rates currently being shown as advertised for my skillset were valid then I think I would .

The advertised rates were about 60% of my current pre-boom rate.

I am also currently in the pipeline for another role, with another 5% increase.

Maybe all the good roles get put straight through from agent to contractor without even seeing Jobserve etc...

I think you're right. When I look at Jobserve I get depressed, thinking about the cut I'll have to take to my rate. Then an agent calls me and I realise I can command the same, or a higher, rate than before still.

[Scrag Meister]

Was looking at itjobswatch the other day and if the rates currently being shown as advertised for my skillset were valid then I think I would .

The advertised rates were about 60% of my current pre-boom rate.

I am also currently in the pipeline for another role, with another 5% increase.

Maybe all the good roles get put straight through from agent to contractor without even seeing Jobserve etc...

[CheeseSlice]

Not sure how accurate those figures can be when the listed average UX Manager rate is more than an IT Director and a Programme Director....

I'm not sure how the site works. If the site screen scrapes the job boards then the averages may be inaccurate when the contract is rarely posted.

I find the rates are more accurate for the more common roles.

Also don't forget to click on the role/skill and you'll see more of a breakdown and you can see a histogram with the skew of rates.

[edison]

IT Contractor Job Market, Ordered by Average Daily Rate^

Then compare that with:

IT Contractor Job Market, Ordered by Matching Job Ads^

Not sure how accurate those figures can be when the listed average UX Manager rate is more than an IT Director and a Programme Director....

[edison]

Take a trip to the real world! £500/day - provided you can keep in work, which at that rate I'd hope you can because you must be pretty good - has to put you in the top 1%, maybe even the top .1%.

London may be expensive but for £500/day I could afford to keep my house up north and rent a place in zone 1 full-time.

Ignoring the tax efficiency of dividends, assuming you billed 220 days a year, your gross income would be £110k. At that level you would be around the top 2% of earners in the UK. Top 1% is nearer to about £160k. Top 0.1% would be nearer to £300k I guess - about £1500/day at contract rates!

[vwdan]

Take a trip to the real world! £500/day - provided you can keep in work, which at that rate I'd hope you can because you must be pretty good - has to put you in the top 1%, maybe even the top .1%.

London may be expensive but for £500/day I could afford to keep my house up north and rent a place in zone 1 full-time.

I'm not pretending that my sums are perfect, but in moving to contracting I've tried to accurately predict my income (Including both personal and corporation taxes + the new expenses I'll incur) and even at a very modest well below market rate I should be matching my current (not unreasonable permie) earnings in less than 8 months.

[Antman]

A more interesting question is how do you break out of your local ceiling rate.

There are a tier of independent consultants operating above that who are getting in via connections and pricing based on their value.

I know of one contractor/consultant billing £2k per day at Bank Of America in London and I know of a guy making £700 in Liverpool who then bought subbies in too.

How to break into that I'm not sure.

Me neither but I'm pretty sure the answer's not on jobswerve.

[Kanye]

A more interesting question is how do you break out of your local ceiling rate.

There are a tier of independent consultants operating above that who are getting in via connections and pricing based on their value.

I know of one contractor/consultant billing £2k per day at Bank Of America in London and I know of a guy making £700 in Liverpool who then bought subbies in too.

How to break into that I'm not sure.

[d000hg]

..and don't forget a lot of it disappears in tax.

When you think of the blood sweat and toil and maybe the additional expenses, eg living in London, your net rate might no be as great as you think.

Take a trip to the real world! £500/day - provided you can keep in work, which at that rate I'd hope you can because you must be pretty good - has to put you in the top 1%, maybe even the top .1%.

London may be expensive but for £500/day I could afford to keep my house up north and rent a place in zone 1 full-time.

[kal]

It's probably correct and maybe once you reach a certain level, there might be a limit on how much you can negotiate. In South East I think in non-IB £450 is the max - biting the bullet by giving an ultimatum that you won't sign the renewal without a rate increase might not work.

Or £250 a day for a java dev role in the Midlands anyone?, me neither and thats why I commute to London...

[mykash]

A few threads today have made me think people just don't negotiate hard enough.

It's probably correct and maybe once you reach a certain level, there might be a limit on how much you can negotiate. In South East I think in non-IB £450 is the max - biting the bullet by giving an ultimatum that you won't sign the renewal without a rate increase might not work.

[Kanye]

£700 is not difficult to find in the London IB scene. There are 50+ Java contracts at £650/day today and they will all roll over within a week.

A little negotiation or a rate increase between contracts and you can break £700 easily.

A few threads today have made me think people just don't negotiate hard enough.

Not willy waving, just contributing my experience.

[doodab]

Considering just how much money £500/day actually is, it really shouldn't be surprising that most of us won't be finding roles paying that
You lose track when just playing the numbers game of trying to maximise your rate sometimes... I do anyway and I expect others must do.

I do tend to think in multiples of £50