Consultancy rate... No idea where to start!

dowie · 13 Jul 2010 at 00:20

FWIW

(though this is banking software it perhaps at least in the same ball park)

http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/contracts/uk/sungard.do

http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/contracts/uk/murex support.do

dowie · 13 Jul 2010 at 00:22

photoshop said:
You would have to be pretty special to ask for more than £40/50 per hour unless your really really rare!

not really - that is about the average rate for plenty of vendors

s0ck · 13 Jul 2010 at 00:22

dowie said:
FWIW - given that we've got limited info here - I'd just ask for £600 per day.

i don't think 600 is beyond your reach from what you've described but as an absolute minimum, 450/day.

photoshop · 13 Jul 2010 at 00:23

dowie said:
not really - that is about the average rate for plenty of vendors

What region?
Certainly isn't the North East or Yorkshire and certainly wount be for your first consultancy position

.one. · 13 Jul 2010 at 00:28

Your an accountant and your asking how much to charge for consultancy mm ok.

[FnG]magnolia · 13 Jul 2010 at 00:32

You need to speak to an agency. Any figures posted here will be based on guesswork and ignorance.

Stuff · 13 Jul 2010 at 00:33

I'd say...
OVER 9000!

pioneer2000 · 13 Jul 2010 at 00:34

.one. said:
Your an accountant and your asking how much to charge for consultancy mm ok.

I've always had a salary - i'm an absolute noob when it comes to consultancy!

This is unfortunately not helping much...

Thank you for the assistance so far everyone but can we not agree on at least a ballpark? We have a range from £40 to £600 /hr at the moment!! :eek:

Ah, right, in the time I posted this others have beaten me to the punch! Will definately see what a few agencies say tomorrow - provided they will give me an answer. Cheers all!

dowie · 13 Jul 2010 at 00:36

photoshop said:
What region?
Certainly isn't the North East or Yorkshire and certainly wount be for your first consultancy position

region isn't necessarily relevant for this sort of work though I doubt there is that much demand in Yorkshire for some contractor with niche knowledge of a package used by a LLoyd's syndicate etc...

nick1988 · 13 Jul 2010 at 00:43

I have seen consulantcy charges from £1k a day to the extremes of 4/5k a day. Like people say it really depends on what your offering. Im afraid I could not even begin to guess how much to ask for so I'm not even going to try.

I would assume it would probably be best to start high though. If they dont like it but you are the only man for the job then you can control ho much you are willing to negoiate down to showing that your not just money grabbing and like others have said it could open other doors.

Rotty · 13 Jul 2010 at 00:43

photoshop said:
You would have to be pretty special to ask for more than £40/50 per hour unless your really really rare!

!

I'm not even a consultant and my employer charges £185 ph for my time ( East Mids )

[FnG]magnolia · 13 Jul 2010 at 00:53

Rotty said:
I'm not even a consultant and my employer charges £185 ph for my time ( East Mids )

This is exactly my point. The OP should speak to some agencies and get a feel for the market. If he listens to some of the advice in this thread he'll be practically giving his services away for free. Only 40 quid for a consultant? Dear God ...

.one. · 13 Jul 2010 at 01:12

Rotty said:
I'm not even a consultant and my employer charges £185 ph for my time ( East Mids )

And what is your work ?

Rotty · 13 Jul 2010 at 01:16

.one. said:
And what is your work ?

Hardware Engineer, Enterprise Servers and SANs

sanaxe1 · 13 Jul 2010 at 01:22

(i.e. there is literally no-one else that knows the system & there are no procedures/manual provided by the developers... therefore making it quite awkward for the company in question).

This alone means they should get the lube ready. They will be willing to pay a lot if it is literally only you who can help.

dowie · 13 Jul 2010 at 01:22

Rotty said:
I'm not even a consultant and my employer charges £185 ph for my time ( East Mids )

There may well be a big difference between what your employer can charge and what you could charge as an individual.

I get billed at circa 1.5k a day by my company but realistically as an independent contractor I'd be looking at anything from 450 - 800 depending on the project.

I think people in this thread are getting a bit carried away with the whole 'consultant' thing - seems we've got anyone from general IT bods who think that £40 an hour is expensive to people for whom a 'consultant' is some form of demigod project manager with decades of experience.

The OP wants to work on a contract basis providing advice/'consultancy' on a software package he's familiar with - he's not going to be some project manager running several teams etc.. but he's also not some random IT bod with some generic skillset. He's got some knowledge in a niche area working in an industry that pays well. If it was Banking software then £600 per day is about average (reference the links I posted earlier) - I'm assuming specialist insurance/accounting software shouldn't be too far off those rates.

Rotty · 13 Jul 2010 at 01:26

dowie said:
There may well be a big difference between what your employer can charge and what you could charge as an individual.

I get billed at circa 1.5k a day by my company but realistically as an independent contractor I'd be looking at anything from 450 - 800 depending on the project.

.

I agree but I was just trying to show that £40 an hour was off the mark too

Hamish · 13 Jul 2010 at 08:35

I'd say £1500 - £2000 a day

jamief · 13 Jul 2010 at 09:01

Hamish said:
I'd say £1500 - £2000 a day

Good luck with that.

Ev0 · 13 Jul 2010 at 10:08

From experience getting an applications contractor through a company usually comes in at around 800-1000 a day for the stuff I've had to get done.

As said that's going to a company who will then send one of their consultants/contractors, if you were going direct then knock some off so say £500-600 maybe?