If you're only on 10k more then I think the choices are go perm or find a contract that will challenge your skills and pay you more. You have done a few courses which helps make up for the lower rate but having said that, it's cheap to teach yourself too these days albetit without some crappy certificate being given.
Someone else mentioned the market has been bad the lsat few years. Part of the reason for this is that there's a lot more permi-tractors out there now - those who want a bit more money than the perm job paid not realising the full potential and negatives of contracting. So perms who haven't had a payrise for a while are going for low paid contracts, low paid to a proper contractor, but better paid to an ex-perm.
Although there are different aspect to contracting, from the finaicial angle you need to aim for earning double the amount of a perm salary. Some say if you divide what you would get in a perm job with your skills but 100 then that should be your daily rate. So £30k a year should mean not accepting less than £300 a day. But it allows for training, pension, sick, holiday, likely large commute bills etc. I don't fully buy into that but not a bad rule of thumb when applying for contracts.
I recently returned to contracting after a year out working an FTC and in some ways regret it. The current market is different than how I remember it when I last had to pick up a contract but also my circumstances mean I don't need to contract anymore. But I like to challenge myself too, I cannot coast along doing the same thing day in day out, and that's why I did it and commited to loads of extra time commuting, huge stay away bills etc. Howver, after 6 months or so I'm finally fully settled back into contracting again and have adapted my mindset. I also realise it could be easy to spend 3-4 months out between contracts these days.
Permie-tractors picking up low paid contracts are ruining it for the proper 'career' contractors
People need to bump up their rate and if they then fear prcing themselves out and then being without work for a while then contracting isn't for them.
At current client a perm handed in notice for a 3 month contract. The contract was then pulled and he asked to stay. If he was serious about it he would have left anyway and continued searching for another contract. Gawd knows what he would have done if the 3 month contract ended after 3 months. I have assumed it probably wasn't even that well paid but better pay than his perm job
