Reply to: What happened to bobbification and outsourcing?

[cherhill]

Been wondering about this a lot recently - perm salaries have gone through the roof for developers, genuine roles for say .net developers around 45-50k in the north west?!

I have a friend of mine who owns a company and he can't find any half decent .net developers for 45k. I have tried asking my contacts if they would be interested (including some past colleagues from Lithuania) and they won't even move here for effectively doubling their income. Then I look online and see that the average salary is 27,000....

Does IT really pay that well even for non-specialists?

Are the good times coming back or perhaps they are already? I know for sure that I won't be leaving this company until they won't need me anymore as the rate is more than I could have ever imagined when I started contracting nearly 5 years ago....

Permie salaries are rising, contracting rates are falling.

[original PM]

Indeed unless it gives you real business advantage most companies only need off the shelf software and skill using it to make good money and cut costs.

The more I look at it most companies spend millions chasing a 0.1% advantage when they really need to work on improving their processes and people.

Cannot agree more sadly where I am 'it' is the solution to everyones problems.

They just will not address the deaper seated issues of people simply not doing the job they are paid for.

[NickyBoy]

Indeed unless it gives you real business advantage most companies only need off the shelf software and skill using it to make good money and cut costs.

The more I look at it most companies spend millions chasing a 0.1% advantage when they really need to work on improving their processes and people.

Yep.

Back in my permie days I was involved in providing software solutions to large middle eastern financial organisations and we got into the habit of offering a process improvement as an optional extra.

Most of them were so desperate to imitate London financial organisations that they would buy this optional extra, leaving me with the easy task of developing software that the client was paying extra to adapt themselves to.

I need to remember that one.

[vetran]

Which is what the majority of software does anyway.

Indeed unless it gives you real business advantage most companies only need off the shelf software and skill using it to make good money and cut costs.

The more I look at it most companies spend millions chasing a 0.1% advantage when they really need to work on improving their processes and people.

[SueEllen]

If you do that you will never have software that does what you want, you will have software which nearly does what you want.

Which is what the majority of software does anyway.

[NickyBoy]

This is absolute b0llox complete and utter b0llox.

If you do that you will never have software that does what you want, you will have software which nearly does what you want.

As soon as you outsource anything like that you have put the software your company relies on to do business in the hands of someone who sole interest is making as much money out of you as possible.

So you use an operating system you coded yourself hu?

[original PM]

My prediction of the "Future IT" department looks like this. A small team of "contract managers" maintaining the contracts for a large number of SAAS applications. Complemented by small groups of in-house, business saavy, technical developer/analysts embedded within business units comfortably speaking both "tech and businesses" building applications that actually give the organisation a competitive edge.

This is absolute b0llox complete and utter b0llox.

If you do that you will never have software that does what you want, you will have software which nearly does what you want.

As soon as you outsource anything like that you have put the software your company relies on to do business in the hands of someone who sole interest is making as much money out of you as possible.

[GlenSausio]

If testing is such a waste of time, how come it finds so many issues?

Because of bad development practices, and lazy developers. Anyway, that's for another thread.

[SussexSeagull]

Yep, business savvy analyst programmers. That's what you want.

All the other parasites will move along: architects, BAs, testers, etc, etc.

I would like to see some kind of professional license become mandatory, like traders need.

If testing is such a waste of time, how come it finds so many issues?

[Zero Liability]

neither of those are likely to be permies, they will either be partners or via their own ltd yet HMRC doesn't shaft them.

Well, they've gotten in on that game, too, and introduced similar legislation to IR35, although in that case the LLPs are responsible for complying, unlike with IR35. Which has made career progression to partner significantly more difficult than it used to be, given the risk to the firm. However, I would suspect those earning those top end rates would qualify as "genuine" partners, even under the new tax grab legislation.

Not sure the lead was thrown away, I suspect most of the brains at that time just moved to silicon valley. The USA just has a far far better investment environment because of the tax laws there encourage a lot of risk. Whereas here, HMRC just wants to open a new hole - IMHO.

Does the US offer IT firms there preferential treatment vis-a-vis other firms? Their CT is higher than the UK one, so I would imagine there must be other sweeteners.

[SueEllen]

neither of those are likely to be permies, they will either be partners or via their own ltd yet HMRC doesn't shaft them.

You don't shaft the people who can make your life hell or can end working for you. Though they do try....

[vetran]

Not sure the lead was thrown away, I suspect most of the brains at that time just moved to silicon valley. The USA just has a far far better investment environment because of the tax laws there encourage a lot of risk. Whereas here, HMRC just wants to open a new hole - IMHO.

I had started diversifying I had two subbies and we were starting to make money just not enough for us to live on, my contracting income was subsidising it. I sort of folded and took a permie job to put food on the table when I was bobbed.....I coulda been a contender

Many of the brains did move away because of tax but also the complete lack of support for the industry may have had a little to do with it.

[vetran]

Contracting does earn more - I was commenting on perm-salaries. Though I've seen some accountants on £1500 a day! and barristers on £350/hr. so Comparing a contracting rate to a perm salary isn't entirely fair.

neither of those are likely to be permies, they will either be partners or via their own ltd yet HMRC doesn't shaft them.

[lilelvis2000]

For the mid level skill-set that most contractors have, contracting in terms of financial reward is hard to beat. I've friends in accountancy, mechanical engineering, teaching, architecture, law and chartered surveying amongst other things and not one of them earns close to contracting rates in IB.

As for off-shoring, if I'm truly pragmatic about my experiences then I'd have to admit it has given me many many more opportunities than it has cost me. I know many folks who've been bobbed over the years, but they're all now in gainful employment both as contractors or perm.

Contracting does earn more - I was commenting on perm-salaries. Though I've seen some accountants on £1500 a day! and barristers on £350/hr. so Comparing a contracting rate to a perm salary isn't entirely fair.

[lilelvis2000]

Not sure the lead was thrown away, I suspect most of the brains at that time just moved to silicon valley. The USA just has a far far better investment environment because of the tax laws there encourage a lot of risk. Whereas here, HMRC just wants to open a new hole - IMHO.