Reply to: Crap rates - just be honest agents

[gables]

£73/day less than psychocandy?

Poor you. People have ended it all for lesser indignities.

Indeed. He's missed the other option that the data is so poor its not really worth the paper it's not written on. It's a great idea but it's reliant on data supplied by agents, you know the data I mean, the inflated rates that never materialise, the jobs that don't exist etc. All makes for a completely misleading picture unfortunately.

Umm, I'm on nowhere that rate hence my laughing and it was just my rate back in 2000 in today's money, presumably going by inflation as per the calculator, rather than a rate I'd expect now.

I'm fully aware of the imaginary rates and jobs, and take what most people say their rates are with a pinch of salt. From my experience rates are still down on the late 90s\2000s due to recessions, oversupply for the number of contracts going. This oversupply fuelled by people thinking easy money, which they find out isn't the case then so take lower rates - I could be wrong though.

[northernladuk]

According to that I should be on £923/day

Indeed. He's missed the other option that the data is so poor its not really worth the paper it's not written on. It's a great idea but it's reliant on data supplied by agents, you know the data I mean, the inflated rates that never materialise, the jobs that don't exist etc. All makes for a completely misleading picture unfortunately.

[LondonManc]

According to that I should be on £923/day

£73/day less than psychocandy?

Poor you. People have ended it all for lesser indignities.

[gables]

Have permy jobs caught up with contracting a little bit? Not sure. There still seems to be plenty of "blue water".

Rates are very gradually heading north (in unix infrastructure). I'm on my best rate since 2008, numerically. However if you factor in RPI inflation (the one that includes housing) this is no longer the case. Inflation has a surprisingly big effect over a few years. Eg. £300 p/d in 2007 would be equivalent to £409 now, according to the H-L inflation calculator. Just to fend off inflation, an increase of £10 or so per year is needed. All pretty obvious I guess.

The rates information at https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk seems to confirm a slow upward trend. But it is too optimistic. Either that or I am undercharging.

According to that I should be on £923/day

[TwoWolves]

The industry is going through big changes at the moment so as a contractor it's either skill-up or be steamrollered into the dirt.

SQL -> Big Data/NoSQL
H/W -> Cloud
Sys-admin -> Kubernetes/Openshift
Java -> Scala/Go-Lang

... to name a few.

Even then rates are flat, this is thanks to central bank manipulation of the economy and immigration. If IR35 goes private sector I don't think it will be worth it anymore.

[man]

Some of the rates are a micky take now, and they want a list of skills longer than Ron Jeremy's member.

+1.

[oracleslave]

Do you want to see my rate card to see if anything interests you? :-)

You still offering reacharounds at Bridgend service station?

[OneJag]

Rates going down

I've noticed there are a lot of very poorly remunerated gigs being advertised at the moment in the infrastructure arena. Gigs I'd expect to see around the £300-£350 mark people are chancing at £225-£250, which is terrible! I've made it through to the second stage of a permieland interview in a couple of weeks, and am having to seriously consider that it may be the best option looking at what the market is currently doing..!

Some of the rates are a micky take now, and they want a list of skills longer than Ron Jeremy's member.

[bobspud]

Yep, I've found the same. Honestly I thought the rate I was on for where I am and what I am doing was low, but I'm now thinking it's not a million miles away from what most appear to try and be paying.

Im thinking of doing the same re the infra role - it's an AD specialist role which should allow me to extend my skills into Azure eventually, specifically federated identity management and the like.

The problem is anyone with half a brain can sign up to AWS and Azure and find a few courses on udemy.com and away they go. If you are sitting in a role and hoping to be spoon fed the next step you are already toast. I have taught myself both AWS and in the process of doing Azure to both engineering and Architectural standards. But the fact that anyone with time and gumption can do that impacts the majority of rates.

[psychocandy]

How much for you to say you love NLUK?

You can quote in weekly JSA payments if you want....

Easy mun - 1/10th of a JSA

[mattfx]

Yep, I've found the same. Honestly I thought the rate I was on for where I am and what I am doing was low, but I'm now thinking it's not a million miles away from what most appear to try and be paying.

Im thinking of doing the same re the infra role - it's an AD specialist role which should allow me to extend my skills into Azure eventually, specifically federated identity management and the like.

[TydnA]

Im hoping you are an engineer rather than an architect because if you are the latter you have been talking yourself out of a good 250 - 400 a day... I think by the time you get fed up in the start up. Both cloud and architecture in general will be long past having the payoff for the skills required to do it properly. Most of the guys I am working with in cloud are not even infrastructure guys they are all devs. (pretty poor ones as well judging by a lot of the scripts and code)

I am not sure what comes next though.

Yeah, more of an engineer. Perm job allows a move to cloud/arch so will be back and then hopefully targeting a much higher rate. Would easily be able to get more if I were able to work in London but I'd rather cut my own limbs off than have to do that.

It also seems that a lot of people can't script/code at all, especially seeing the stuff I've had to rework in the past year

[bobspud]

This is exactly what I've found too. Been in infra type role for the past couple years at £300 and now theres few hitting that mark.

In the end, decided to take a perm job at £63k + stock (startup) for the next couple years and see where things go. Should get me into a few new areas like cloud/arch so getting those roles later would be easier imo.

Worst I heard was an infra type role, inside IR35, skills spec as long as your arm and £175 a day...

Im hoping you are an engineer rather than an architect because if you are the latter you have been talking yourself out of a good 250 - 400 a day... I think by the time you get fed up in the start up. Both cloud and architecture in general will be long past having the payoff for the skills required to do it properly. Most of the guys I am working with in cloud are not even infrastructure guys they are all devs. (pretty poor ones as well judging by a lot of the scripts and code)

I am not sure what comes next though.

[unixman]

Have permy jobs caught up with contracting a little bit? Not sure. There still seems to be plenty of "blue water".

Rates are very gradually heading north (in unix infrastructure). I'm on my best rate since 2008, numerically. However if you factor in RPI inflation (the one that includes housing) this is no longer the case. Inflation has a surprisingly big effect over a few years. Eg. £300 p/d in 2007 would be equivalent to £409 now, according to the H-L inflation calculator. Just to fend off inflation, an increase of £10 or so per year is needed. All pretty obvious I guess.

The rates information at https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk seems to confirm a slow upward trend. But it is too optimistic. Either that or I am undercharging.

[TydnA]

I've noticed there are a lot of very poorly remunerated gigs being advertised at the moment in the infrastructure arena. Gigs I'd expect to see around the £300-£350 mark people are chancing at £225-£250, which is terrible! I've made it through to the second stage of a permieland interview in a couple of weeks, and am having to seriously consider that it may be the best option looking at what the market is currently doing..!

This is exactly what I've found too. Been in infra type role for the past couple years at £300 and now theres few hitting that mark.

In the end, decided to take a perm job at £63k + stock (startup) for the next couple years and see where things go. Should get me into a few new areas like cloud/arch so getting those roles later would be easier imo.

Worst I heard was an infra type role, inside IR35, skills spec as long as your arm and £175 a day...