IT contracting - hows the market?

[pherlopolus]

I know there are a few on here, so thought I'd ask the question in a 'friendly' location...

I've been looking for a first contract after about 12 years as a permie (Solution Architect - Infrastructure/EUC) for about 4 weeks, I've had my CV polished by not only peers, but my career councillor (just took VR, so company paid for 3 months) and even asked advice from a couple of recruitment consultants.

I'm applying on Jobserve, jobsite, technojobs IT jobs board, security cleared jobs and contract recruit, following up with phone calls and emails etc. Also had a few phone calls asking if I was interested in some contracts then it all goes quiet.

No interviews yet (except one I declined outside of the EU, mainly due to the tax issue once I had researched it).

Is the market a bit quiet at the moment (I am assuming so), when will it pick up?
Is it a slow burn that will suddenly all click into place?
Am I doing something wrong or missing a key source of contracts?

[pherlopolus]

Thanks, time to get on with the domestic jobs while I have chance then!

[pherlopolus]

True to form had a flurry of interest today from one of my target companies, looking good but not counting eggs yet

[pherlopolus]

or even the other way round!

I have a second interview for a localish gig lined up for monday, and another possible interview for something further south.

I did some focus improvements to my CV last week and think it has started to trickle through

[pherlopolus]

totally. Especially if you have to fork out for a hotel somewhere expensive all week

[pherlopolus]

I saw the workings from both sides, and on a £500 day contract it costs about £50 a day more than the equivalent Permie does a company, and thats without redundancy etc when the project ends.

500 a day has to cover pensions, hotels, mileage, accountancy, time off when you dont have a contract or when you are sick or when you want a holiday.

Don't forget your £500 a day contractor probably has skills worth about 80-90k + bens in permie world.

I'm not saying it isn't a lot of money, but not a significant difference to permie, but you do get more control...

[pherlopolus]

I am getting back into it primarily for the ability to control when I work.

I know its unlikely to happen, but the chance of being able to have the whole of school summer holidays off without using up all my allowed holiday is appealing.

Last time I was contracting I got to work in some very interesting locations and met some fascinating people, which just wouldn't have happened as a permie!

[pherlopolus]

I've been off the bench for about 10 weeks now, but notice that there are few high end BA positions out there, also Solution Architects seem in demand. Not sure about the PM side as having got alerts set for them.

But as a Hybrid BA/SA/Cost Consultant/Programme Lead I find your experience quite positive

do you have secondary skills you could create a second jobsite profile for?

[pherlopolus]

daemon said:

3 weeks on the bench and i've now got a contract starting Tuesday - 3 months with likely extensions and a strong day rate.

Quite pleased with that, was buckling down for a long stint if needs be (Xbox One had been ordered)

great news.

I'm 3 month into a 6 month initial, programme looks set to be a long one too. best thing is working from home 2-3 days a week on average

[pherlopolus]

George111 said:

I've been recruiting recently for Citrix/VMware/SQL/Win/Cisco engineer with at least 5-8 years experience in all technologies and a bit of storage knowledge and finding it difficult to get good CVs submitted. What's the market like right now ? We've now decided to get a contractor rather than perm - is that set of skills a big ask these days ? What's the expected day rate for an experienced engineer with these skills in the South East, outside London ? Was thinking £350-£400 a day ?

350-400 to the contractor or the agency?

[pherlopolus]

theboss said:

If you want somebody with that breadth of skills and some depth to any of them, you'll be looking at 450-550.

sounds like a Unicorn to me hence the lack of CV's

[pherlopolus]

I don't know the scale of the infrastructure, but that role would have been 5 specialists in most services companies I have worked for. in my experience the multiskilled people I met were generally working at a shallow knowledge in many fields (like me - 10-30,000 ft in the fluffy cloud level), and then we would have a groups of specialists in each area with the actual deep knowledge in each field.

The only exception to this has been NHS and Local Gov where they then have to call speicialists in when it all goes horribly wrong.

The problem you will have is the mutliskilled people tend to be able to bluff a deeper knowledge than they actually have, and will generally be good at learning on the fly, so you will have some weeding to do!

[pherlopolus]

You will probably have to boil what you did down into a couple of different CV's showing that you specialised in certain aspects, as well as have a generalist CV.

As for the market, best bet is to have a look through Jobsite and Jobserve and see if there is anything on there you could vaguely do. If there is a market, there will be people asking for it....