What do you think will happen to agencies next April?

[LondonManc]

Agree I am on 100 notes less a day now compared to my London Rate (my choice), bonus is I have a 5 second commute as I WFH, get to see my kids and am less stress free. If I do go back to London it will cost me 90 quid a day which I will factor into my rate x2 as its not just the money but time also, in fact not being able to claim it back means I probably won't bother.

Could potentially be the best future working model, barring the inevitable cabin fever that sets in about 4 months into pure wfh

[sal]

Wishful thinking here: How about the agencies cut their margins? If you charge £2/h for low skill bod why do you charge £5-10h for high skill bod? Presumably the amount of work you have to do is the same, yet you want a % cut....

And why on earth would the agency be entitled to a % of the ongoing contract if they are not doing any ongoing admin work, after the introduction?

Like it or not i believe the upcoming changes will have the result HMRC/Gov desire - a lot of the contractors that are indeed a disguised employees will move to permiedom where they belong. The rest will take a hit, some might be able to negotiate a rate increase based on the supply/demand in their area of expertise or geographical location.

In any case the Agencies will survive, like any parasites they live as long as the host lives and tehre will always be need for flexible work force be it ltd contractors, umbrella or agency temps.

[czakky]

Wishful thinking here: How about the agencies cut their margins? If you charge £2/h for low skill bod why do you charge £5-10h for high skill bod? Presumably the amount of work you have to do is the same, yet you want a % cut....

The £2 P/h is approx 14%, which about the average of what I charge clients, which means on a £80 per hour contract I'd charge £11 (napkin maths here!)

If you can't understand the difference in difficulty in finding someone to log and flog on the phones, and finding someone to build enterprise software, then you really have no grasp of how most of this works.

We charge a set margin as it just makes business simpler and more transparent - all my clients and contractors know my margins, I learnt a long time ago why hiding this is bad, it never goes well.

And as I have said before, if you do hate agents, do your own BD and find your own gigs. You do not have to use us in the days of Linkedin and mass social media.

[sal]

The £2 P/h is approx 14%, which about the average of what I charge clients, which means on a £80 per hour contract I'd charge £11 (napkin maths here!)

If you can't understand the difference in difficulty in finding someone to log and flog on the phones, and finding someone to build enterprise software, then you really have no grasp of how most of this works.

We charge a set margin as it just makes business simpler and more transparent - all my clients and contractors know my margins, I learnt a long time ago why hiding this is bad, it never goes well.

And as I have said before, if you do hate agents, do your own BD and find your own gigs. You do not have to use us in the days of Linkedin and mass social media.

I understand that in some cases it's more difficult to find the high skill bod, the point is once the contracts is signed your work volume is exactly the same regardless, yet you are charging 5 times more. So you believe that spending say 16h to find a candidate for 1 year on a 400pd which is about 90k is worth the 10%+ or 9k+ you charge

Don't take it personal, I don't mind the agents that are doing their job professionally (and you might very well be one of these), unfortunately they are a minority. On the other hand I do hate the rest 90%+ of the scum that wastes my time with cold calls, offers for permie jobs, asking for 2 references and false promises that my CV was sent to the client, yet demands 10k / year for the privilege...

[CloudWalker]

"Agencies will find a way"

[Danglekt]

i think agencies will need to cut their cloth according to the income, the days of selling in cheap labour that should be perm will probably end, so they will need to focus on selling in higher skilled labour. Assuming the same costs can be spread over a lot less work won't fly, so they will have to shrink to match.

Personally I have never used an agency, and invest my time in keeping the client sweet and building my reputation - after all that is the product I sell.

[d000hg]

If you can't understand the difference in difficulty in finding someone to log and flog on the phones, and finding someone to build enterprise software, then you really have no grasp of how most of this works.

Is that because "C#" breaks your CV keyword-search and you have to look through them manually?

[TheFaQQer]

Depending on how it all shakes out my current thinking is that I will start quoting "Rate + T&S" for new gigs. This is just what the big consultancies do now anyway so brings things in line with them. My day rate is still a fraction of what they would charge to put in someone wth less experiance.

If push comes to shove I am one of those in a position to absorb the costs if I have to, but that doesn't mean I won't try and avoid that if I can.

As the T&S consultation stands now, it won't make any difference how you bill for them - the client can pay all the expenses for you directly for all it matters. Because your travel and subsistence will need to go on your P11D and be declared as a benefit in kind - so separate them out is fine, but it's not going to help you as an individual get the money out without paying PAYE and NI on it at some stage.

[BolshieBastard]

Changes wont make a difference to agencies. or, even clients imo so people who think rates will \ should go up are dreaming.

But, I think people are missing the obvious here and that's too many contractors just wont be bothered or affected.

They wont be bothered because they are effectively permietractors. There are plenty of contractors who've been at a client site for more than 2 years so cannot claim travel and subsistence. They wont be affected so wont campaign to retain T&S.

Of the remaining contractors, many, in my experience, dont travel more than 30 - 40 miles to the client site. I know permies who travel that distance every day and they dont get travel expenses.

In my last couple of contracts with major blue chip clients working on big projects, a straw poll suggested that only 20% of the contractors travelled 50 miles or more to work. in my current place, out of 6 contractors, 4 live within 25 miles of the client site.

In effect, something like 80% of contractors wouldnt 'suffer' financially if T&S was no longer claimable. Admittedly, its very much a rough poll but has been pretty constant through my contracting career.

[darrylmg]

Being ignorant as I am, I thought that the T&S rules were also going to apply to those nasty offshore visa type people?
Don't they come through consultancies who usually get tax relief on their T&S?
Would someone please explain how these people could be affected by all these potential new rules and regs?