State of the market

[HairyRoadie]

Hi All,

I'm an ex-Contractor thinking about returning to the market. Long story short, I contracted either side of Y2K, then took a permie job due to family commitments, young kids growing up and so on (oh and IR35). That lasted 15 years or so. However I'm at a crossroads due to redundancy. I'm thinking of going back contracting. The question is, what's the state of the market? I'm a DBA by trade, so Oracle, SQL Server. I can see that the Oracle market has collapsed from a permie point of view, SQL Server is buoyant. Ideally I want to work in or around Manchester. Not keen on London - don't want to work away.

Anyone got any insight? Is the market dead? I can see lots of "jobs", but not sure if they are real, or recruiters fishing for CV's. Thanks for any responses.

[northernladuk]

If you have a look in the business section there is a 39 page thread already running on this. In a nutshell it's pants. For the detail have a look at that thread.

[BigRed]

I'd have said for a SQL Server DBA outside London it isn't too bad. Rates are nothing special though. As someone who has been permie for 15 years and Christmas coming it may be tough unless your head's in the Cloud or you are into BI with columnstore, Power BI, R, U-SQL etc.

[HairyRoadie]

Cheers both. I missed the thread that was referred to. Will have a read. Best go permie then! And learn some new skills.

[SueEllen]

Cheers both. I missed the thread that was referred to. Will have a read. Best go permie then! And learn some new skills.

If you being made redundant then take your redundancy money and see where you end up.