Author Topic: Contracting - Agencies?  (Read 3032 times)

Contracting - Agencies?
on: December 07, 2017, 19:42:26 PM
I'm thinking of going down the contracting route.  I'm tired of doing the MSP thing.
How many are still doing this?  I know Egg, Pete and Bytejunkie were (based on a quick site search) but where are they now?

Are agencies worth going through?  How do you find your contracts etc?
Is the money still worth it?  How much traveling around do you do?  Is there much flexibility in the working hours?

Thanks!

Re: Contracting - Agencies?
Reply #1 on: December 08, 2017, 07:32:56 AM
find a contract via agencies.
ive prob got all my contracts via jobserve or through an agency first introduced via jobserve.
Its more important to try & get on an agencies books (& get some contracts with them) as they will approach you before paying to advertise on jobserve.




Sometimes they have short contracts like weekend or evening work. Its quite possible to do 2-3 of these contracts at the same time.
I had one stint where I would be installing servers & pc's at one place in the daytime & then off to a supermarket after 7pm to rewire a cabinet & upgrade the tills.
It was long hours, but the money was so good! We managed to align the stores close to each other to reduce travel. I was only getting about 5 hours sleep though! Oh & while I was doing that, I was also being paid a retainer while waiting for the next contract to start (A contract which I am still at but now permanent!).


Money can be worth it - but the market is also saturated with low skilled people. You kind of have to prove yourself all over again but more so to an agency. Agencies deal with tons of people, so they are quite apt at sorting those who know crap from those who can do the job!


Travel is down to where you are prepared to travel. Im sure you would travel further for £50 an hour, than if you was offered £25 an hour! I guess your part of the world has tons of opportunites compared to mine (I can only really travel East & West - there is nothing North & Sea to the south!).


Work flexibility is dependent on you. I know people who work all the hours they can to grab as much cash as they can. I know others who will a stint, take time off & then look for another role. As for daily/weekly its usually negotiable. THere are 2 types of contracts - one is to do a specific job or project, while another is more of a backfill role where a company dont want to take on a full time employee. The later can bring its own problems like IR35.


Getting paid - most agencies are aligned with an umbrella company. You pay the Umbrella a monthly fee & they sort out all your tax & wages.
This is fine when getting started, but if its going to be long term thing, then set yourself up as a limited company. Its the most tax efficient way. Throw in Flat rate VAT registered & you can add 10% to your companies income (& claim the VAT back on purchases over £2k) - but that would need more specialist advice.


If your looking to get away from more user side support, then start to look into a new area. Security & VMWare are probably 2 of the biggest areas with a skills shortage.

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Re: Contracting - Agencies?
Reply #2 on: December 09, 2017, 17:46:37 PM
I think there is always room for contractors in IT, although maybe becoming less so in software development where many places are turning Agile (at least I would guess so, outside of London) - no one wants to pay for someone to come in at twice the price and half the skill to piss off the salaried devs, IME. Might be different for your field.

If you were looking for a change you should get yourself proficient in AWS infrastructure/devops type stuff and you could be laughing.
Last Edit: December 09, 2017, 17:48:08 PM by Clock'd 0Ne #187;

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Re: Contracting - Agencies?
Reply #3 on: December 11, 2017, 23:52:43 PM
I contract (in London) and I wouldn't go perm (in London). It's easy to find a contract and the rates are excellent. Might be different in Sheffield or whatever. I get daily messages on linkedin, so build up a network there, and put your CV on the job boards.

Re: Contracting - Agencies?
Reply #4 on: December 12, 2017, 08:46:49 AM
I contract (in London) and I wouldn't go perm (in London). It's easy to find a contract and the rates are excellent. Might be different in Sheffield or whatever. I get daily messages on linkedin, so build up a network there, and put your CV on the job boards.

I think it really depends on what area of IT you are in though.
MCP/end user support pays the worse because people are happy to do it for crap money. Not sure what Soopahfly does exactly, but I think its a bit of everything for a small IT provider.
That wont really count for much with agencies to start with. A can do attitude & not using the word No can quickly get you the lucrative contracts.

With Sheffield its how far your prepared to travel. Manchester, Bradford, Leeds, Nottingham, etc. are all within a commutable distance if the money was good! Thats a big catchment area.


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Re: Contracting - Agencies?
Reply #5 on: December 12, 2017, 20:45:41 PM
Throw in Flat rate VAT registered & you can add 10% to your companies income (& claim the VAT back on purchases over £2k) - but that would need more specialist advice.

The flat rate has been scuppered. It's now 16.5% for IT companies which means you make about 10 pounds a month out of it.
Plus you now pay higher tax on dividends. All in all I'm down thousands compared to 2015.

Re: Contracting - Agencies?
Reply #6 on: December 13, 2017, 07:00:08 AM
Throw in Flat rate VAT registered & you can add 10% to your companies income (& claim the VAT back on purchases over £2k) - but that would need more specialist advice.

The flat rate has been scuppered. It's now 16.5% for IT companies which means you make about 10 pounds a month out of it.
Plus you now pay higher tax on dividends. All in all I'm down thousands compared to 2015.
Didnt know that. Beginning of tax year 2015 was when I went perm.
Was nice buying an imac, macbook & 2x apple TV's for £1600 after VAT rebate

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Re: Contracting - Agencies?
Reply #7 on: December 13, 2017, 07:58:55 AM
Wouldn't usually tout my own product but if you're interested in building up a dashboard of contract offers from the different job boards I would recommend signing up to https://www.workray.com/ with a Gmail/Outlook account specifically for job hunting. Sign up in advance for some contract role job alerts on the various job boards that apply (Jobsite, Jobserve, CV Library, TotalJobs, Reed are good for IT) and this web app filters and aggregates all your job board emails into our system so you can apply for jobs across the boards without wading through emails or trawling them manually.

We also have a nifty application tracker which offers Calendar reminders for interviews, etc. It's getting better every day, it's what I've pretty much spent the last two years working on with my team.

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Re: Contracting - Agencies?
Reply #8 on: December 13, 2017, 08:20:25 AM
Is it node, scala ?

Re: Contracting - Agencies?
Reply #9 on: December 13, 2017, 08:57:41 AM
Cheers for all the help guys.

Currently, I'm a field engineer for a company in Dinnington.  I don't get involved with "user" level stuff these days, mostly cabling, security, vmware and servers.
Bit of Notes experience, and a whole bunch of Linux.

Tbf, I'm considering a career change as well.  Doing IT professionally takes the fun out of it.

Re: Contracting - Agencies?
Reply #10 on: December 13, 2017, 10:14:11 AM
any certs to back up what you can do?
Can be difficult to get a contract to match your skillset with no certs.
I know what its like to work for a small IT provider. You end up doing everything, but never get put through any certs!
End up as a jack of all trades, master of none.

If your going to retrain & dont mind cabling, always worth looking into becoming an electrician.
My stepdad used to be a spark & he was surprised how quick I picked it up - but I think thats a lot down to running network cables, etc.
It was something I was considering for a while.. Also found plumbing quite easy as well.

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Re: Contracting - Agencies?
Reply #11 on: December 13, 2017, 18:56:08 PM
Is it node, scala ?

Node, though we are using some APIs pulling big data written in Scala developed over at HQ in London. They are looking for a Head of Dev ;)

Might use Scala at some point though we have not needed to yet, none of my team are big on Java/Scala so everyone would have some learning curve.

Node's I/O and AWS infrastructure makes scaling a piece of cake.

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Re: Contracting - Agencies?
Reply #12 on: December 13, 2017, 20:45:05 PM
Node, though we are using some APIs pulling big data written in Scala developed over at HQ in London. They are looking for a Head of Dev ;)

When do I start?
Pay me in 1 bitcoin a year.

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