Petiness in the office

[Steviesam]

I am looking at going contracting. But unsure how much more £ I need to do so.

Any tips?

[0000]

Steviesam said:

I am looking at going contracting. But unsure how much more £ I need to do so.

Any tips?

FWIW, roughly, I started on a day rate at 2x my gross salary / 200 (days). There's all sorts of similarly bizarre and arbitrary formulas people have come up with.

Within 18 months or so I was on another 50% - I'd deliberately priced myself cheap for the market to get the first gig on my CV. Now I try and price myself high enough to not get work from time to time.

Market rates do vary considerably over time I find. It's difficult to compare contract with permie because of the differences in annual leave, pension contributions, how much work you may or may not get, as well as the obvious expenses and tax differences.

Number one tip if you do jump though is get a good accountant early.

[battered]

I use annual salary divided by 100 as a starter for daily rate. So a 40k job should pay 400pd plus exes. But it varies by industry, time and location. I'm doing well just now because my client can't get permys. Other times I've been taking pennies just to get in the game. Good luck. Just get stuck in, you'll survive. In a bad year you'll earn less than the boss's PA and wondering why you bother, a good one will see you putting your previous salary in a pension fund to avoid tax and still taking a decent wedge out.

[Steviesam]

Thank you.

[spikeyhead]

Steviesam said:

I am looking at going contracting. But unsure how much more £ I need to do so.

Any tips?

Charge what the market will bare. Whilst the previous answers give a rough guide, There's no ideal answer. Consider if you'll be working fixed daily hours, or flexitime, for 35 or 40 hours a week. I've done 65 hours a week temperature testing parts for a satellite, 90% of the time was reading novels whilst the temp changed, so very little effort thus the hourly rate was lower than a gig with fixed 7.5 hour days. I also suspect that no-one manages to maximize their rate all of the time.

[0000]

spikeyhead said:

I've done 65 hours a week temperature testing parts for a satellite, 90% of the time was reading novels whilst the temp changed, so very little effort thus the hourly rate was lower than a gig with fixed 7.5 hour days.

You didn't charge for that time spent waiting on site for the temperature to change between tests?

[spikeyhead]

0000 said:

spikeyhead said:

I've done 65 hours a week temperature testing parts for a satellite, 90% of the time was reading novels whilst the temp changed, so very little effort thus the hourly rate was lower than a gig with fixed 7.5 hour days.

You didn't charge for that time spent waiting on site for the temperature to change between tests?

I just dropped my hourly rate by about 15%. Still ended up charging about 30% more per day than one of my normal gigs.