Current Trends In IT Contractor Positions

Sorry Brian, I feel you are wrong here mate! In an ideal dream state world, yes this works, but I know loads of IT contracting staffs, which live hand to mouth most of the time. From one high paid job to the dole, and when they work it out, they are working for less than minimum wage over the year.

There are very few that go contract to contract, most spend over half the year waiting for a phone call. I don’t doubt for a minute that you have made your mark, and are earning, (if you are in fact doing it, not just writing about the urban legend of contracting) but what is your down time rate, unpaid commuting time and out of pocket/unclaimable expenses like?

For most, this is just a pipe dream, even if these so call “jobs” are out there, actually exist, for most, they are few and far between with 1000s of people hopefully applying for something they have no chance of getting.

In the real world, they stop people getting jobs, cost far too much for what most contractors can actually achieve, and often cost more in the “Putting Right” stage after!

Sorry mate, nice article, but more fiction than fact!

I only come here once in a while, and as I was thinking of a reply, someone else beat me to it.

I have to agree with some of what Jamie said. Yes, contracting isn’t the golden egg Brian Cavanagh says it is. Sorry it’s not. I have been in and out of work for the last five years, and though I did earn up and over £300 a day, I am often sat at home doing jack-doda.

Last year I earned 35k, but when I consider what I earned Vs hours not working, it worked out to be around £8 per hour (35hour week/48weeks a year), not mention the lost hours on trains and in traffic jams.

Nah, not for me anymore. I now work for £10 per hour, 35hours/36 week (i.e. Term time) per year, yep it’s for a school! All I do is, just nailing things back together after some snotty nosed/spoilt little brat has broken it in a tantrum, all because teachers cannot smack the brat anymore.

Seems so many are selling a dream, or a potential life style, but only taking the ad/see the link money and not actually doing it!

I read the blog and felt it was only me who is having problems trying to find work as a highly qualified Project Manager with many successfully implemented projects and good references. In my experience a lot of work comes through recommendation and contacts in the contractor world and you need to get the first couple of roles to then build on them. Sitting at home applying for job after job and not even getting a ‘we have received your application thank you’ is pretty soul destroying. ‘ what I have observed is that during the recession employers are more cautious and asking for exact matches on several levels including previous experience with the software, the sector, and having completed an almost identical project, not in previous times when for example as a PM, the skills that were sought are ability to deliver any project on time and to budget and quality required. My current network of friends and colleagues are all in the same boat, we are ALL looking for contract work.

Debbie

I completely agree with the comments here. I have over 25 years experience in IT. I have a huge amount of technical and mgmt experience and went contracting 5 yrs ago. I earn high rates for short periods of time with gaps of 6-12 months between work – most of the time I am trying (and failing to find work, even low rate work). Most agents do not understand the jobs they are trying to fill and actually do not try to read CVs and rely on keyword matching, no call back and automated responses are demoralising. I am now seriously considering moving away from IT completely because I believe it is more cost effective and satisfying to work continuously for far less doing something else – £600 a day is no good for 4-6 weeks per year.

To true Debbie, I gave up contracting 3yrs ago, just sat around to much waiting for work that never appeared. That was a shock to the system, as I knew, and still know lots of people, but the “Exact” match critira kills of most chances of getting any real work.

I have to agree with most of the comments here. Contracting for most is mired in unfair competition from outsourcers flouting ICT Visa rules or HMRC trying to retrospectively apply an ambiguous set of rules in order to gain more tax from “soft” targets. Add to that the severe recession which has seen many a contractor being left on the bench for a year or more and it all seems too much. Sure, there are jobs being advertised but try finding one where you tick the long list of specific requirements. I’m afraid the rosy outlook is not shared by many contractors out there.

I am a high-earning contract resource. I tend not to work for myself, but via 3rd parties. The market does seem to be very buoyant from where I am standing, but companies that need the resource tend to be indulging in highly self-destructive behaviours.

Some very prominent examples include – an electronics firm that needs a product/project manager will not take anyone without experience of the exact technical product, regardless of the fact that the disciplines required are completely portable, and has now had this gap for a whole year (I notice they just stopped advertising on the years anniversary of the requirement); a bank will only take a service manager who has quantitative box shifting numbers of a specific large value, as if that is evidence of anything at all; a big supplier of IT will only recruit people who have supplied *their* IT to *their* customers already…the splendid illogic of that is still making my head hurt.

We also have the ‘too’ syndrome in full swing. I just got off the phone with a world class and well known guru, who was just ejected as ‘too experienced’ to solve a companies urgent issues in a consulting capacity. Apart from the innate madness of that mindset, how can anyone be ‘too’ anything ? The most popular small minded explanation is that overqualified people ‘will only leave’ and therefore should not under any circumstances be allowed to start. The trouble is, nearly the whole history of ICT does not bear out that attitude, it is an urban myth. Real experience shows a) turn-over is far more influenced by job satisfaction than any other criteria and b) that minority of people who go on record with reasons for leaving are in the minority and in my decades of experience as a manager are usually intangibles like life experiences, the ‘I wanted more money’ is a convenient thing to record when you have to answer that question. Attempts to pick out the potential leavers a priori do not work or it would be a science. This attitude by employers in the contract job market is completely self-harming because by definition the engagement is temporary, yet I run into it every day.

There used to be a totally different approach to contract and temp recruitment as to permanent, and now there isn’t. Where did that sensibility go ? It happened so gradually I didn’t notice – I am very close to the recruitment business and specifically a temping agency and I can’t say exactly when it happened but around the turn of the century the received wisdom ‘evidence of past success is evidence of future success’ because twisted into ‘only employ exactly the same profile as the person who just left’ and around the middle of the decade we stopped funding training as a nation and so now we have an obsession with bits of paper over experience.

So in summary, if you have one talent and have executed it well, and it is still in demand then you will definately benefit from today’s climate. If you are multi-dimensional, aspirational, flexibile or in any sense outside the box… then you have to wait for the pool of available people to shrink to the threshold where recruiters have to pay attention to breadth and potential again.

I’m an unemployed IT contractor for the last 4 months, i have a string of recognised IT qualifications and lots of experience and hardly ever get a chance to show off to an employer, sometimes i wonder why i don’t even get an interview even though i have the exact match in criteria. Makes me think are these jobs advertised actualy real in the first place. Like others its soul destroying waiting around for the phone to ring and the only calls i do get are time wasters, like we have a job that requires international travel when you have clearly stated you don’t.

You don’t deserve the title of contractor – go permie and get some low level role within your capablilities and stop pretending your are some highly qualified, mobile consultant.

Brian, Interesting article.

i have been contracting for quite a few years and happy to say that never been out of work.. move from one role to another.

not sure what the secret is, but one is being flexible, good at what you do, not behaving like a contractor (i.e. talking about day rates, leaving early etc) Most of my contracts last over a year and usually are just initial 3 month contracts. I work 5 days a week and do around 220-230 days a year and generate over £130k a year in fees. There will be times of no work so you need a CV that stands out and you need to keep improving your skill set.

I have been contracting since 2001 and have been lucky enough to go from contract to contract. I have never restricted myself by location and will go anywhere for work if the rate on offer supports the level of expenses I will incur and leaves me what I need to live etc… I’m not sure where the rates in the article come from though. The market rates are low at the moment, some stupidly low (had agent ask me if I wanted to go to South Wales for £130 a day) which would lead me to suggest that a rate of £35-40 is more likely than the £50+ an hour touted here. No doubt there are contractors earning £50 plus but I would suggest that isnt the norm.

where did they get this load of rubbish. You should be ashamed of yourself publishing such drivel without asking a few people first. When Is the last time you spoke to an IT contractor?

In the middle of the last big recession in IT Tony Blair opened the doors to Indain contractors saying there was a shortage of skills. This nonsense comes from the same stable.
Did you get a nice donation too?

I have to agree with the previous comments.
There has been a serious dumbing-down of our profession which has reduced rates as well as the quality of the end-product. (IMHO)
There are still some reasonable jobs out there but the Agencies’ strategy of using ‘exact match’ to thin out the large number of applicants makes it very difficult to get interviewed.
As a result, I’m hanging on where I am, even though I’m over-qualified and underpaid!
Nick

In round numbers, I get one reply/shortlist for every 150 or so applications, and 1 interview for every 6 replies. In 2 years my only contract (6 mths) came from a personal recommendation. When in full time employment I had no breaks in 32 years with 5 companies. I know one contractor who had only 3 months off in 4 years(same company) until 6 months ago – nothing since – but most are like me. I was a PM for 15 years (P2prac) on over 120 projects, but I get more replies if I pursue BA roles. Also it seems to me that 90% of contract jobs are in the City, and banking or investment experience is well rewarded & has the lions share. My lowest offer has been £110/day for a role advertised at “up to £250″ for local gov in Devon – it did get filled by someone living a few hundred metres away – remember the advertised rate is often designed to attract! My guess is that Brians research is limited to one or two pals in EC2 who wear the same ties – but just try a job search within 50 miles of Carlisle, Coventry or Cardiff and if there are any, check the rates – then try 10 miles from London – I rest my case!
Den

My apologies, I was wrong to think the article was misguided. I missed something significant.. I found this on Brians profile:
…. Brian has distilled his experiences into an online training product entitled “How To Become an IT Contractor”…. far from being misguided, it is very targeted – just like the telly ads that say “retrain in IT and earn £45kpa”.

I’m planning to leave my current perm job and start contracting in couple of months time. I feel that I’m over qualified and underpaid in my current job. Reading Brian’s post was quite encouraging but reading all the comments is really soul destroying!!! I need to seriously rethink my decisions. I have a friend of mine who is looking for a contract for the past 2 month’s but I assume that contractors do have to wait for 3-4 months max for their next contract… I’m now into deliemma!!! What’s going on guys? I thought recession is over?

I strongly agree with Jamie. Brian should not only write but come up with examples of on going IT projects that needs lots of contractors in the UK right now. Most openings in the EU mailand demand ffrom UK contractors to speak their language. The few ones here in the UK these days treat able contractors like students sitting for GCSE by demanding a 3 page pre-interview submission or invite you under the pretext of interview to seek your professional opinion at your cost.
Agencies these days engage in very sharp practice of trying to find out who your previous project managers were in order to look for them on linkedin to disturb them with phone calls to secure a deal .

OK…. so is the consensus amongst us that Brian is in fact a “Snake Oil” salesman, peddling “training” videos at £95 a hit ?

Great comments – thanks everyone. It’s not just me ! Where are these great contracts?
I agree with the comment about the self-destructive nature of certain companies.
And the downtime question…
I think we need to behave like firemen, many of whom have a second job. I haven’t yet worked out what thte second string to my bow should be so I’m going for more training – in .NET which seems to be in more demand than the legacy systems I’ve been using. The other key to downtime, in my view is to spend some but not all the time looking for work and then not feeling guilty about enjoying the time off.

This article is just a load of rubbish, how can you pubblish such an article? You should really be ashamed!

Having moved between the last 4 public sector contracts over 5 years without enforced breaks it all seemed fine. However, I finished a contract in February and the market is anything but bouyant. Yes, there are jobs advertised, but even when I find a good match to my skills the response from the agent is often lukewarm at best. Are these real jobs that are advertised?

Many of the jobs advertised won’t be real, in particular Government body jobs. The NHS being a prime example, they have to put positions out for re-tender yet want to keep the people already in them. Thats why you get daft lists of skill sets that no person can meet. Oh look, no CV matches what we advertised for so looks like ‘Fred’ gets to stay for another couple of years….

Also agree with dumbing down comment and companies bringing in off shore resources on the cheap. There was no skill shortage just a willingness on the part of Government and certain companies to undermine British contractors.

Sorry Brian, you appear to be completely out of touch with the market. i have around 17 years experience, a wide range of technical and application skills, flexible about location. what can got a job full time or contract.

All, thanks for all your comments. Apologies I have not been able to reply as I have been away for a few days.

It is obvious from the reactions in some of the comments, that there are mixed feelings over the state of the market.

If you look at the link below that I have just taken from itjobswatch.co.uk, you can see the percentage increase/decrease in roles in the last 3 months.

http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/contract.aspx?page=1&sortby=2&orderby=1&q=&id=0&lid=2618

This includes the average rate associated with each job. Also, if you click on the role or skillset you can see where in the country the role/skillset is most in demand.

The point that people are raising over validity of these roles is not something that I have or contractors that I have spoken to have come across.

In response to the apparent confusion provided in some of the responses, I would make the following suggestions, which I hope are of some benefit:

1) Contractors should view themselves as a business. That means they emit a constant and polished professionalism at all times (always taking on work where others may not).

2) Contractors should go the extra yard to understand their clients business (where’s it coming from and where it’s trying to get to).

3) Contractors should understand the movements in the marketplace that they are operating in (Itjobwatch.co.uk can help you with this).

4) Putting money away for downtime (downtime fund) is priority number 1. You should aim to have a 3-6 month fund in place. Your first contract should be focused at putting this in place. If you are required to dip into the fund due to downtime, you must top up the downtime fund as soon as you obtain a new contract.

5) The word matching process used by recruiters is flawed, but there are ways and means to use this to your gain.

6) Many people have delayed the move into contracting over concerns over HMRC rules. 3 years on, these people are still in the same boat, whereas those who have moved have done very well from making a decision.

7) I fully agree that your cv must stand out.

I am an IT contractor who speaks every day with other IT contractors about the market they are in.

9) London rates are stereotypically higher than the rest of the country and that is driven by the finance industry. Again use the Itjobswatch link where you can specify your location and see the increase in jobs skills in your area. These are the skills that you need to have on your cv for your area.

Based on the events of the economy over the last 12 months, my tip for contract work is finance and regulatory roles. The banks now need
a) to have a better understanding of the risk that they carry and
b) they must be able to demonstrate their position (via IT systems).

Take a look at the increase in “market risk” jobs in London alone in the last 3 months. They have increased by 133%.

I received 2 phone calls for jobs (not market risk related) this morning without even applying for roles in over 7 days (I’ve been away for a week).

While all of you may not be in finance or banking, my earlier comment about understanding the movements in the market re-affirms this point. It is no longer enough to say that you have x number of years experience delivering on time/on budget, you need to think like a business and understand the marketplace that you (your business) are operating in.

I hope that helps.

Brians article is the biggest load of crap and soo untrue i just wonder what planet he is one. I am an IT Contractor and i have been out of work six months now. Its not as if i dont apply for enough jobs as i find myself putting in for roles all over the country which number approx 50 plus a month.

I have done some research and have noticed thati rates are lower than fourteen years ago. There are certainly very few £50 an hour roles out there unless you are bleeding super qualified. I myself wish i now had trained a Plumber where there will always be a request for work and you certainly wouldnt sit around for six months being offered roles as low as £7 an hour for some Desktop Support Contracts i have seen.
No i am afraid to say i will be advising my son to do anything other then IT as a full time carear. When i read Brians article i thought it was just me applying for jobs here there and every bleeding where but to no avail, until i read the comments by true IT Contractors and not some space cadet living in planet ZOG full of IT Super Men on £190 an hr.

Anyway nice to know its not just me sat here having nightmares about working in a factor for £7 an hr although hey i would be getting more or less the same as some IT Desktop support jobs i have seen advertised.

Sorry Brian to add to the long list of comments here, but I feel that your article is well off the mark. Having been in contracting for more years than I care to remember, now is the worst time for people to become contractors. The market is depressed in terms of rate with assignments that were drawing £550+ / Day now being offered for a daft £240/day. Whilst the number of opportunities available has been very good this year as a number of companies restart their development programs, following last years issues, the number of people also applying for the jobs has increased considerably. One agent reported that over 200 people had applied to him for a role that was advertised for only 1 hour.
It’s articles like these that lead those unfortunate people who have been made redundant from a perm position to thing that contracting is easy money. That is flooding the market and depressing the rates, and potentially damaging the reputation of true contractors who have made their living on providing excellence and experience.
I would suggest that you have a chat with a number of contractors and agencies and write another blog titled ‘Why I got it so wrong and are out of touch with the market’

With reference to ‘Posted on March 8, 2010 by Brian Cavanagh’

A combination of patronising and smug self assured bullet points that tell us all we need to know about the author.

This article really is the worst sort of fantasy London-Finance centric nonsense. I have over 25 years IT experience, the last 16 as a contractor on end-2-end assignments all over the country earning good money on large projects from the NHS National Program to retail and finance …but the last 12+ months has seen me decline from daily Jobserve trawling to just watching daytime TV.

This is without a doubt the worst I have ever seen the market outside of London … made much worse as has been said here by off-shore resources depressing the rates and government departments like the NHS wastintg everybody’s time and money advertising jobs just as a procurement exercise in order that they can renew people already in post.

What money I was able to put away after the repeated ravages of HMRC has now gone so I doubt that I will be rejoinging the ranks anytime soon. Without enough capital now to finance the first 6-8 weeks of a new contract away from home any offer would have to be practically on my doorstep which is unlikely as I live in Devon.

If anyone is thinking of leaving a permie position to take up contracting at this time then think again … daytime TV is just awful.

I feel this Brian Cavanagh and this article should be stuck off the site. Cloud Cuckoo-Land and website sponsorship spring to mind and these are forcing the authors hand and views in what he writes. As a contractor with more years under my belt than I want to remember, I know the trends out there, and they are not good. I am glad to be retiring in the next 18months, and I sincerely hope all those out there without a job, contract or not getting interviews will find success soon. My two-pennies, don’t believe what Brian Cavanagh wrote, it’s utter twaddle and NEVER pay to become a member of a job search site!

Ted

And where do you suppose itjobswatch.co.uk gets their data from? Step forward the it job boards entirely filled with agency “rates” that are so obviously over inflated. Many of these jobs don’t actually exist – they’re just there to grab more cv’s and see where you’ve worked previously. I’ve worked as a contractor for well over 10 years years and Brian, I’m afraid that just recycling stats produced by agencies is not an accurate picture of the market. I too get calls from agents all the time to see if I’m available, even months after I’ve told them I’m working. I’ve also taken a 6 month hit of not being in work last year. I was getting quite worried about the future after being out of work for that long. I also know 2 other contractors (both highly skilled and adaptive) who’ve been out of work for a long time too. There’s certainly a skew of rates towards london finance as others have already pointed out and its to be expected. I think half the problem is with agencies. They just suck and the problem is that companies wanting to hire a contractor form an association of poor service, cv selection with that of the contractor that they eventually hire. I could probably write a list as long as my arm of the underhanding tackticks that agencies have tried with clients and myself over the years! Alternatives to using an agency are also pretty slim. LinkedIn is but a joke, although a fledgeling site I found my last contract throuh called http://www.directcontracts.net ticked all my boxes as it uses techniques that specifically stop agencies from using it which I liked!!

Maybe if people made an effort with their spelling they would find that they didn’t spend quite so long out of work… ‘tackticks’ being a prime example. Lets hope a little more effort goes into the CV’s.

Thanks for pointing out the spelling mishtake Andrew. Yes, I agree that people should take exceptional care when writing their CV but to compare the quality of English used in a blog comment section and ones own CV is a bit odd since you obviously spend an age pouring over the latter. I always get several others to proof read it too. If you don’t already then do it, you’d be surprised as to what pops up!

I cant be the only graduate who is fed up of “IT recruitment” consultants who have *ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA* of the technology or what they are actually looking for!

IT is all about transferable skills or being able to “Make IT Work”. All it seems to be these days is recruitment idiots asking for a million different technologies/skills that do not belong together or being unable to match your CV to the requirements due to a lack of understanding of your skill set.

..would be nice if they actually knew their MCSE from their MCITP or their POP3 from their SMTP.
but they dont!

I have my own web site http://www.contractjob.net but I still have to go through the same struggles as any contractor – feast and famine.

how much do you really make by being a contracter please reply

I have to say, as editor of quite a large contractor site – http://www.contracteye.co.uk – we do get a lot of completely contradictory news about the state of the IT contract market. I would say that it is still fairly depressed, but off the lows. Not sure I agree that it’s booming yet – which is what some commentators would have me believe.

Really cool article as for me. It’d be really cool to read something more concerning this matter. Thanx for giving this data.

Why don’t contractors create and fund their own agency. In effect they contribute say 5% of their revenue per annum to pay for some decent sales/business development staff – who are answerable to them. Its what we’re currently building at the plainTalk Alliance. Real problem nobody wants to make the contribution – they’d rather pay the 10 to 20 percent than get of there arses and make a genuine functioning alliance. Its the old I want something for nothing rule!

Having been a contractor for over 3 years I completely agree with a number of these comments. Yes you can earn the ‘big bucks’ but then have a lull of around 3 months were your money earned can deteriate. I work in supporting projects and the issue I have is that I dont want to be doing this in 10 years! I want to start a family, get a morgage and enjoy life not worry each day when my next role will come in . Agents can be very unreliable! …. contracting im afraid is not for me.

I think the idea about contracting is quite conflicting. It is based on your skill set and the industry you have solid experience in. Some industries thrive better than others, certain skill sets are in higher demand than others. I am a Java developer in Investment banking industry and I have never had to finish a contract before a better offer comes along. i tend to reject offers most of the time. I have team mates who have contracted for 15 years in the same industry and have never been jobless for a day. I can identify with the article writer, however I have friends who have also been out of job for a long time, however in a different industry and with a different skill set. So we cannot generalise as far as this issue is concerned. it’s up to an individual to decide if contracting is working for you or not.

Well this outstanding work that you are doing.sign of intelligence ,efficiency and master work.
well done . keeping note of it .you are doing a great service to the people .i liked it so much .

thank you so much for such an unique site

The thing with contracting is that every time you have to find your own work. Working within a company, your boss is taking care of clients communication regarding the work arrangements and all. With contracting, you’re your own boss and you have to be able to sell your self. There is lots of work on the market for IT contractors and the daily earnings are very nice. But i would agree with the previous comments, it can be hard to get the work if you’re not the negotiation and selling type of person. That is not good nor bad, its just that you have that skill or you don’t.
But not to have the usual taxation trouble, i say you take a look at this website http://www.contractorcalculator.co.uk , and learn all you need to know about setting up a limited company in UK and do your own taxes.
I hope this is helpful.

I started contracting 10 years ago after being made redundant by a major outsourcing company as a service integration manager for major outsourcing deals up to £70m pa in value. This was during the last recession and surprise, surprise the majority of the 300 people made redundant were over 50 and high earners (including myself and some directors), but there you go, life goes on. Contracting has its ups and downs and I have been lucky to have had a least one good contract a year varying in duration from12 months to 4 months at rates between £460 and £280. One of the contributors to this series of “musings” was spot on – you have to be mobile, flexible and highly adaptable to survive these days. My current speciality is IT reviews and cost cutting – last used in the 90s and very current today with CSR10. I have tended to work with central and local government but have also worked as an interim service and contract manager for major international companies. My biggest problemis not me old age (turned 64 last week) but my hearing which has deteriated over the years. My customers are generally ok with this but it will be time to hang up my laptop soon after 43 years in the IT business. AND I still have all my own hair, crowns and an MX5 (gave up the elctric guitar a few years ago when I wrecked my hand in an accident)