Reply to: Are Contractors Overpaid

[BlasterBates]

There is a wise old project managers saying in contractor circles:

You can overpay some contractors all of the time, or you can overpay all the contractors some of the time, but you can't overpay all the contractors all of the time.

[Jeebo72]

So after six months contracting I still dont get why contractors are paid the money they are

Seriously where else in the UK can you open up a sham Ltd and start invoicing £500 a day + VAT - I just dont know

And what amazes me more then anything is that contractors are NOT 'experts' in their fields - Sure they get stuff done and can follow orders but is nt that also what a grad fresh out of college can do??

I might seriously be naive but can anyone RATIONALISE and justify why contractors get the rate they ask for (and how senior IT management dont look at the numbers and fall off their chairs)

Yip, great init. I made 550 a day last year for 6 months and did nothing more that write a few SQL statements... those were the days ...

[Andy2]

I think joey is getting overpaid
£500/day in this market

[Spacecadet]

not getting dividends on top then?

Part of my income is from dividends

[MPwannadecentincome]

I only get paid the minimum wage

not getting dividends on top then?

[Pondlife]

I only get paid the minimum wage

Lucky bugger. I have to ask the Co Sec for pocket money.

[wantacontract]

Joey, how much do you think gladiators were paid?

They were doing it for their freedom!

, i like that......made me chuckle...

[Spacecadet]

I only get paid the minimum wage

[swamp]

Most contractors are not overpaid; they are paid the market rate.

[BlasterBates]

I am a business analyst / project manager with a very specific set of business knowledge in a very narrow power generation field (god help me if there are no working coal fired power stations in the world!).

And yes it is feeding the troll or a very naive and inexperienced contractor who's had a very cushty life.

A permie with contractor "issues" I think. Interesting though that even though it is a cushy number and highly paid he's still a permie (probably).

[kingshuk]

I don't quite understand why a developer would have to provide this type of service. They write the programs, hand them over to the respective team who should be given all necessary documentation to provide their own support. If the application needs to be changed fairly often then its (a) either never been properly specced or (b) the changes are being made on the fly with no real testing being performed. Sounds a bit of a pigs ear which is probably why they want to offshore it....then it really will be a pigs ear

Exactly my thoughts too about the developer having to do all these. But the IB front office dev roles I've seen expect developers do these.

About the frequent change aspect - its not very unusual.

Connectivity apps that speak to about >30 exchanges and support between 500-1000 different client connections may need to be changed when there is a change in the exchange side (often) or when a new client joins (very often), or when client asks for something or when one of the downstream system changes (even more often). Most places I've seen have fairly flexible configurations to support the obvious client requests. But downstream systems providing new features do change very frequently - especially in algo trading area.
What you say about testing had not been my experience. I've seen a good proportion of these tests being automated and the test team (large usually) being very very thorough and capable. The only big cock up I've seen over these years was when for one week testing was done offshore because no one was in London that week and someone new did it remotely.

[Coalman]

Fair enough - What exactly do you do

A lot of people are C# / Java developers with a smittering of financial knowledge.

Not exactly HIGHLY specialised

I am a business analyst / project manager with a very specific set of business knowledge in a very narrow power generation field (god help me if there are no working coal fired power stations in the world!).

And yes it is feeding the troll or a very naive and inexperienced contractor who's had a very cushty life.

[Diver]

Are Contractors Overpaid

The simple answer is NO!

We ex-contractor permies are underpaid.

I deliver (practically autonomously) exactly what I was delivering as a contractor. The difference being that I'm paid almost half as much as I was getting as a contractor.
The only benefit for me is a fixed salary with no uncertainty, BUPA and a few other benefits like getting paid when I'm off.

Without These I would not only want, I would Need the contractors rates to cover me in the lean times.

nuff said

[cojak]

Fook me he's going to need a lot of hooks on that line to reel you all in.

I don't really care...

[Pondlife]

Fook me he's going to need a lot of hooks on that line to reel you all in.