London contractors !

Stolly

Stolly

Stolly

Soldato
Joined
11 Mar 2004
Posts
5,000
Say if i'm a out of town contractor looking to get a contract in London, whats the done thing with accomodation ?

Obviously hotels put a big dent in the profit margin, so do contractors tend to house share or anything ? I did that when contracting abroad...
 
Stolly said:
Say if i'm a out of town contractor looking to get a contract in London, whats the done thing with accomodation ?

Obviously hotels put a big dent in the profit margin, so do contractors tend to house share or anything ? I did that when contracting abroad...
Click to expand...

Well obviously unless you're on the highest paid contracts then a hotel is impractical, I guess my only advice is commute or move. I know plenty of people who do 2 hours or so each way, depends how many hours you'll work and how much money it's worth...
 
Hmmm it'll cost me over £120 per day on the train, so thats not really worth it.

Some places do short term leases so they may be worth it...
 
House share/B&B/long term hotel deal.

I'd go for house share if it's only going to be for 4-5 nights. Get a bit of a social life then which would otherwise be rather lacking.
 
There's a couple of contractors near me that commute from Scotland to London borders. I think they must have negotiated a reasonable package to fly down and back once a week, they rent a house and share the cost.

To be honest unless you are very specialist, if you're £120 worth of rail fare away I would have though there is a more economical job working locally?
 
Gumtree.com/couchsurfing is probably worth a look... although the latter is more aimed at travelling students. :p
 
daz said:
Gumtree.com/couchsurfing is probably worth a look... although the latter is more aimed at travelling students. :p
Click to expand...

I'm contracting and rent a room in a flatshare. Be warned that securing a good flatshare is harder than securing your contract. I was competing with about 20 individuals for my place!
 
Stolly said:
Hmmm it'll cost me over £120 per day on the train, so thats not really worth it.

Some places do short term leases so they may be worth it...
Click to expand...

Depending on where you live getting a annual or even monthly rail card can cut it down a bit, thats what I do when I get contract positions in london anyway :)
 
Hmmm food for thought guys.

Competing with 20 people for a flatshare ?

Thats insane.

I do know of people who do the train every day to London, but its 4 hours a day on a train and i don't think thats viable in the long term.
 
Stolly said:
Hmmm food for thought guys.

Competing with 20 people for a flatshare ?

Thats insane.

I do know of people who do the train every day to London, but its 4 hours a day on a train and i don't think thats viable in the long term.
Click to expand...

It is insane and unless it's £500 a month for a penthouse then it's completely unnecessary. I had no trouble finding a decent place for £650 a month...

4 hours on the train in total? so 2 hours each way? It's worth thinking about, living in London it's still 50 minutes or so to get to work for me, if you can spend 90 minutes on one train, get a seat and do some work then it's not too bad at all.

I spent some time commuting up from Brighton and I loved it for the couple of weeks I did it, leave at 8, get a seat on the train, catch up on my emails and send some meeting requests on the way, read the paper, in the office for 9-35 ish. That beats a busy train for 30 minutes with little oppurtunity to do anything productive.

Obviously I don't know what it'd be like for you but in my experience you can do plenty more than sit on a train for 2 hours...
 
Alternatively what I have done before is start the contract and commute and see if there are any permies willing to rent you a room. Its more money for them and convienience for you.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom