Disparate Pay & Contracting

[MagicalTrevor]

Deep Thought said:

MagicalTrevor said:

Contracting for 5 years as an Oracle (and recently MySQL) DBA and it’s the best thing I ever did.

I would have thought for an experienced DBA like yourself and the O/P, contracting would be a no brainer.

I used to be an Oracle DBA for about 10 years or so for BT and then Santander. Got tired of it but in hindsight wish i'd stayed with it.

I think the last version i have exposure to is 10g.

I was a permie DBA for 12 years before that and probably dithered about contracting for 2 of those.
It’s not for everyone but I’m glad I did.

[Deep Thought]

MagicalTrevor said:

Deep Thought said:

MagicalTrevor said:

Contracting for 5 years as an Oracle (and recently MySQL) DBA and it’s the best thing I ever did.

I would have thought for an experienced DBA like yourself and the O/P, contracting would be a no brainer.

I used to be an Oracle DBA for about 10 years or so for BT and then Santander. Got tired of it but in hindsight wish i'd stayed with it.

I think the last version i have exposure to is 10g.

I was a permie DBA for 12 years before that and probably dithered about contracting for 2 of those.
It’s not for everyone but I’m glad I did.[/b]

Yes, i should have went contracting on the back of my DBA experience at the time but took a different avenue.

Agreed

If someone has a young family in the mix or is the sole income in the house then its a more difficult proposition. My son is 25 and my wife has a really good paying permie job and i am only away for a max of 3 nights a week so it works for us.

Edited by Deep Thought on Tuesday 26th June 08:49

[MagicalTrevor]

My golden rule was always that you need to make sure the war chest is full before you can feel settled.

i.e. Consider what you need to live comfortably for 6/12 months and once you've got that money in your business, after your tax obligations are also covered, then you can relax a little.

For example, if your contract earns £100k net, you might be drawing £50k but if you were out of work then £40k is enough (because you'd cut down your spending). Then once you've got enough in the bank to pay you £40k (pro-rata) for 6 or 12 months then you're good. You should be able to find work in that time anyway!