Contracting.. Does it give you more time off?

[413x]

Just be wary of how they'd want to calculate holiday if you did this - if you had 20 days on a 5 day week contract, if you went condensed hours to a 4 day week, some will then want to amend your holiday to 16 days, if they're calculating by day/week rather than by hours - so you'd still only end up with 4 weeks worth of days off in that scenario.

(Made up figures to illustrate the point, before anyone wants to get pedantic about 5.6 week legal minimums )

(Edit - this could also be dependent on how your contract is set up, i.e. is it by days with fixed times or by hours per week etc.)

Really useful to know. Didn't even think of that.

 

[413x]

Historically contracting has always had its peaks and troughs but from what I'm hearing, this time feels different. Even some agents I trust have said the same. IR35 is partly to blame. Will it change someday? Probably,but I can't see it being anytime soon.
Over recent years there has been a movement to go into contracting to earn just a bit more than their permanent job was paying. Rather foolish I thought. This obviously hasn't helped rates either, with a supply of candidates happy to earn just a bit more than their permanent job was paying, not realising longer term their approach would likely be doomed to fail (will earn less due to gaps between contracts, be more stressed etc).

Recruitment consultants may try to sell it to you but some will happily put you on their books as another candidate they can throw at contract openings, and then when you leave your current employer, they'll be straight on the blower to offer to help them find your replacement, for a 20-25% commission of 1 year's salary of your replacement, naturally .

It is difficult.
I've been putting rates into calculators.
And it definitely doesn't stack up financially.
Ie if you want to earn more doing what I do, it's not really worth it when you consider the perks for FTE.

But it's a tad greyer for me where I am looking for more time off. And I don't care if it's erratic.

But I also see the day rates are, really, a little lower. And ir35 is a bit of a crippler.

If I take the average day rate I've seen for jobs around mine... I don't think I'd be much better off.


I was a tad disappointed by this I have to say as it really cuts my options to "getting more time off".

 

[jaybee]

What IT sector are you in @413x ?
I keep hearing the contract market is dead etc, but I know people in it on long term ones raking in high rates daily still. Depends what you do. One thing they tend not to do a lot though it take a load of time off. Typically the opposite.
I'm an employee and the benefit package overall is good, which is the main reason I stay. If I were to be made redundant I would consider contracting.

 

[413x]

What IT sector are you in @413x ?
I keep hearing the contract market is dead etc, but I know people in it on long term ones raking in high rates daily still. Depends what you do. One thing they tend not to do a lot though it take a load of time off. Typically the opposite.
I'm an employee and the benefit package overall is good, which is the main reason I stay. If I were to be made redundant I would consider contracting.

Business intelligence mainly.
I don't believe it's the best of sectors myself within IT.

Yeah for a good benefits package I'd def rather be perm. I have a friend who works in a place with unlimited holiday. But no job openings there unfortunately! I'm so envious.

 

[zola25]

Yeah I have thought about this. Condensed hours would help for sure. If could do 4 day weeks (I would) you'd also only need 4 days of holiday per week off.
Fridays off would be a godsend really. Would make UK camping trips much more feasible

Is there a reason this is not an option under your current employer?

I recently changed to a 4 day week via a flexible working request. Although this can be done using compressed hours, I've chosen to actually cut hours (with the related 20% paycut). Although most think this odd, I have Wednesdays off, which helps me break up the care tasks for my chronically ill wife, manage my own wellbeing, and gives me a bit of a mid-week 'reset'. Holiday is calculated in hours and my employer allows the buying of an additional weeks worth of your regular hours.

Employers now legally have to consider such requests, although of course that does not bind them to agreeing to the request. Unless you know there is a good reason, it may be worth asking what the options are though.

 

[NotAGolf]

I don't think it would be a good move. Realistically you're not going to be able to take much time off work during a contract (unless you're amazing, they'll just bin you and find someone that puts more hours in), so you'd have to between contracts. Several potential problems with this:

- Doing back to back holidays may not be as enjoyable as spreading them out over there course of the year. I'd certainly rather do a holiday every 3 months, compared to 4 holidays in one hit, especially if they're 'active' trips like your kayaking.
- You're more restricted in terms of what time of year you can travel. E.g. You might struggle to avoid rainy/cold/hurricane seasons.
- Would you be able to switch off and enjoy the holiday, or will you spend your time away worrying about finding a contract soon enough when you get back?

 

[413x]

I don't think it would be a good move. Realistically you're not going to be able to take much time off work during a contract (unless you're amazing, they'll just bin you and find someone that puts more hours in), so you'd have to between contracts. Several potential problems with this:

- Doing back to back holidays may not be as enjoyable as spreading them out over there course of the year. I'd certainly rather do a holiday every 3 months, compared to 4 holidays in one hit, especially if they're 'active' trips like your kayaking.
- You're more restricted in terms of what time of year you can travel. E.g. You might struggle to avoid rainy/cold/hurricane seasons.
- Would you be able to switch off and enjoy the holiday, or will you spend your time away worrying about finding a contract soon enough when you get back?

I don't think the time off in chunks would be too bad.
I go on these high price adventure holidays as I only have that time.

If I had 3 months I could take a van and travel Europe for a bit or even the UK. That would be the plan. It wouldn't be intense week after week stuff.

So chunks of time off between contracts is not an issue.

 

[MrRockliffe]

It’s one of those beautiful situations where you wish you weren’t working when you are, but when you aren’t working you’re panicking wishing you were*


*Unless retired etc



I would first figure out why you don’t want to be working. Is it you want more time? To do what with?


I’d get a good grasp of what it is you want first, then build a plan to get you to the place. One with defined timescales, achievable actions, specific and all the SMART stuff.

 

[Worthy]

I don't think the time off in chunks would be too bad.
I go on these high price adventure holidays as I only have that time.

If I had 3 months I could take a van and travel Europe for a bit or even the UK. That would be the plan. It wouldn't be intense week after week stuff.

So chunks of time off between contracts is not an issue.

From what you’ve said elsewhere in the thread, what you’re trying to achieve isn’t going to be easily achievable unfortunately. Sounds like you just need a blummin’ good break, could you not ask for a sabbatical from work to do your van travels?

 

[413x]

It’s one of those beautiful situations where you wish you weren’t working when you are, but when you aren’t working you’re panicking wishing you were*


*Unless retired etc



I would first figure out why you don’t want to be working. Is it you want more time? To do what with?


I’d get a good grasp of what it is you want first, then build a plan to get you to the place. One with defined timescales, achievable actions, specific and all the SMART stuff.

More time. And happy to sacrifice money for time. I don't really enjoy work. But I don't see a way of getting more time off work either.

I don't see another career that I can change to to "fix" the issues.

In an ideal world I'd simply do a job I had to work less days. However this does not seem to exist.

In distant hindsight I regret falling into IT. I've found that I much prefer "physical" based jobs. Practical ones. I struggle a lot now to absorb information. This is my fault for going with the flow too much from picking a course at uni. Through to my early 30s


But really.
-I want more time not tied to work.
-willing to sacrifice salary to get there.

 

[413x]

From what you’ve said elsewhere in the thread, what you’re trying to achieve isn’t going to be easily achievable unfortunately. Sounds like you just need a blummin’ good break, could you not ask for a sabbatical from work to do your van travels?

No, I don't think so. I've not had the easiest of times in this role and I'm more likely to be let go than given special treatment. To be honest. I don't think the company should have employed me with my skill set, I feel they did as they were desperate for it back when I was employed.

Overall. I feel my job is pushing me towards my weaknesses. And away from my strengths. Maybe as there's just not the work volume anymore of what I do.

 

[dlockers]

Can't you buy some holiday from work?

 

[413x]

Can't you buy some holiday from work?

No. They wouldn't even allow carry over.
Its all changed since take over.

If I could buy 10 more days I'd be happy enough with compressed hours.

Even just Friday afternoon would basically give me another day a week off.

 

[dlockers]

No. They wouldn't even allow carry over.
Its all changed since take over.

If I could buy 10 more days I'd be happy enough with compressed hours.

Even just Friday afternoon would basically give me another day a week off.

That sucks.

I think you need to make some big changes with your life. It isn't my place to advise, but I will. You need to start grabbing life by the short and curlys before it passes you by. Leave your mrs, get rid of your dog, buy a van, do some work on Fiverr to get you ticking over fgs.

 

[IC3]

I think the main issues with contracting in current job market is that, you will spend significantly more time looking for new gigs compared to few years ago. It highly depends on your expertise and if your skills are in-demand.

 

[dowie]

I don't think the time off in chunks would be too bad.
I go on these high price adventure holidays as I only have that time.

If I had 3 months I could take a van and travel Europe for a bit or even the UK. That would be the plan. It wouldn't be intense week after week stuff.

So chunks of time off between contracts is not an issue.

Time off in chunks can be done via regular jobs depending on how they manage holidays; take as much of your 25-30 days off early on in the year then get a new job and refreshed holiday allowance (granted it will be pro-rata in the new job but perhaps 75% * holiday allowance if you do it early enough in the year).

Secondly, if you've been at a place for a few years then just ask them for more leave unpaid - I did this once though it involved threatening to leave/wait out the non-compete during my time off and was perhaps a better job market at the time.

Lastly, get a job with a non-compete period and gardening leave - they're usually wise to what can and can't be done in non-competes so the days of 12 month non compete periods unpaid for a non-senior/non-revenue generator person are mostly over, if you're some IT/BI guy then maybe you get a 3 month non-compete - so long as they're paying you gardening leave then go take that van around Europe.

Look at this guy for example, obvs senior employee so longer non-compete periods, but basically taking a contractually enforced year or several months off after each employer:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1745149539676217358

 

[Semple]

But that's not really going to happen without something like inheritance.
I'm getting older and the time I want is valuable now.

With no kids I'm really trying to figure out if the default "work, mortgage, retire" life is even for me.

I guess I'm just trying to find a way to have more time per year to do things I enjoy. Kind of sick of the 9-5 tedium and looking forward to the limited time off I get.

Throwing another wild idea out there, you've mentioned plenty of times before it's just you and your partner with neither of you desiring to have children. I can't recall if you were in a 3 or 4 bed house, but either way have you considered downsizing which may remove the requirement of a mortgage (depending how much equity you currently have). At that point then you could probably gamble on contracting, or look for part time work etc.