Comments on contracting in UK please!

[Mark Sreeves]

Are you a contractor?

Have you or do you know anyone who has left a permanent position to go contracting?

Did you/your acquaintence regret it?

What's the market like it the moment?

Thanks

[m0rph]

Actually, I just finished a contract job and got offered a perm job here. Contracting is ok, I found it to be a bit of a hassle though, setting up my own company, etc. (especially as it was my first full time job ) One good thing is that you get paid weekly rather than monthly though.

[crispin]

Im looking for contract work at the moment Mark, I have found several things:

If you have contracts behind you it helps. (spose thats obvious really)


You can shovel most of the financial paperwork to your accountant (make sure you get a goodun) So that isn't too much of a bother (although you should keep an eye on it)

Most (but not all) of the work (VB) is in Investment Banking (if you are in London) and the problem is if you don't know derivatives, futures, and equities then you have an awful lot less chance of securing in this field (Grrrr.....)

I find the market very slow right now (Grrr2....)

Dont trust the agents as far as you can throw em!

and if you know of any good roles, lemme know

[Geoff Gunson]

Hello

Our company has hired quite a few contractors, they all get good money, however all of them have said you still need to be careful because they don't know if your going to get the next job.

There also the benifits that you'll miss, pension, health scheme etc.

Being a contractor can also make a difference on borrowing money, most banks charge a lot more because you will be a financial reliability.

G

[tumblingdown]

Used to be a contractor.
Now permie.
Wouldn't go back.
Unless i could.


td.

[Mark Sreeves]

Originally posted by tumblingdown

Wouldn't go back.
Unless i could.


td.

What do you mean by that?

[tumblingdown]

Originally posted by tumblingdown
Used to be a contractor.
Now permie.
Wouldn't go back. (to being a contractor)
Unless i could. (well actually, i would)


td.

it was a joke. Sorry.


td.

[Kzin]

Originally posted by Mark Sreeves
Are you a contractor?

Have you or do you know anyone who has left a permanent position to go contracting?

Did you/your acquaintence regret it?

What's the market like it the moment?

Thanks

Are you thinking of making the move? - you seem to have a contacting company already at custard-software.co.uk

[FlyingHigh]

Q:-What is contracting?
A:-To contract one's activities to one's own company.
Q:-When should one move to contracting?
A:-When one starts liking one's company more than the others'.
Q:-When is contracting fruitful?
A:-When others start liking your company more than their own.

[Bill Crawley]

Contracting is good if you know your field. You have to be very careful though with wording of contracts etc due to IR35 (check out www.shout99.com). I've been contracting 6+ years and have had no trouble finding work. I am though about to go back into full-time em ployment as MD of a biometrics startup (my new co) with proper premises and everything else, but if it fails then i'll be back in the contracting arena. For me contracting abroad can be more lucrative than the UK. For instance if you go to southern ireland, declare that you will not become a resident and stay no longer than 3 yrs, then you dont have to pay tax, which means once you have been outside the uk for more than a year you dont pay uk tax and can also claim the first year back. SO you end up with 3 years tax free.

[chrismitchell]

I have done contracting though it was in a limited way to everyone else... I must say that the money was good though the instability was the real downer because you could never tell if you were about to be gotten rid of!

[Mark Sreeves]

Thanks for your comments.


Kzin,
the name custard-software started out as an office joke but I decided to register the domain and I now include it in code comments when I post to this forum.


http://www.custard-software.co.uk is not really worth visiting

[chrismitchell]

Mark.. I think that you should know that Custard Software is down.. I clicked on the link and it went mental and gave a proxy server invalid...

I hope that it isn't too bad a problem..

[Mark Sreeves]

Originally posted by chrismitchell
Mark.. I think that you should know that Custard Software is down

Aye, so am I.

It's running on ewebcity and their servers seem pretty slow at the moment but the fault might be mine.

The initial page grabs the browser name and version and passes it onto an Active Server Page which logs it in a Database and then loads th main page

A cookie is set so it only logs once per visitor (well browser actually)

it works ok with ie5.0 but I think I need to modify it.

Ns4 handles it ok on PWS on my own PC but complians on ewebcity's servers