Thinking about contracting

Soldato
Joined
1 Mar 2003
Posts
5,508
Location
Cotham, Bristol
My background is in development, mostly focussed around Java. For the past 18 months I've been a Senior IAM consultant. Which has essentially involved writing Apis and front-end gateways/user admin apps for integration into Okta and third party IdPs. Involving SAML 1.1, SAML 2.0 and OIDC/Oauth 2.

It's been pretty intense and whilst I've enjoyed the work the level of stress I've felt over the past few months has made me feel quite ill at times. The project is coming to end soon for me and hand over is almost complete.

I'm going to see what the next 6 months brings, but I am considering if I could start contracting. I'd like to continue making a decent salary but I'm not sure I've enjoyed the stress the level of responsibility the more senior positions bring.

I'm 38 now with two young kids 9 + 5. One thing I have enjoyed about this job is that 99% of the time I have worked from home. Given my location of Bristol and my background is it realistic to expect to reliably find contracts within 30-40 mile radius? These are just musings at the moment and I've not done any proper research yet.
 
Soldato
Joined
15 Sep 2009
Posts
2,876
Location
Manchester
I would wait and see what the next 6 months bring in terms of IR35 as that's the big issue with contracting at the moment, are people going to continue to use contractors, outside of IR35 etc. I'm doing contract work for Infrastructure and will likely be going in-house perm again due to the fact that a lot of the indications I see are inside IR35 is going to be massively more prevalent so it's nowhere near as worthwhile to contract.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
13 Oct 2006
Posts
90,816
My brother has been doing contracting in IT last couple of years or so - money is good but lots and lots of travelling (though mostly he is working between 30-60 miles and on the longer ones sometimes stays overnight or with family in the areas, etc.) and can necessitate a lot of hours if you want to build up relationships, etc. to keep working coming in though he seems to have no problem finding work though mostly seems to have settled into working for a small number of companies.
 
Associate
Joined
24 Mar 2011
Posts
305
Location
Sherwood Forest
Pros: More money
Cons (Projects)
-Travel
-Not 9-5
-You will have strict deadlines that must be met, meaning you have to take shortcuts and do unoptimised code
-Its likely you will be assigned to a partially completed project that is difficult to complete
-You will be disadvantaged due to lack of business knowledge and contacts
-You are liable for the solution after you leave
-You wont be in the immediate loop for IT changes that can break what youre working on
-You are a scapegoat when the companies intended project is quite unfeasible
-There will be times you have days of meetings and no progress is made
-Many many more
 
Man of Honour
Joined
25 Oct 2002
Posts
31,707
Location
Hampshire
^Half of the above can apply to permanent roles though:

-Travel (admittedly more predictable for perm)
-Not 9-5 (I don't see much difference in working hours between perms and contractors)
-You will have strict deadlines that must be met, meaning you have to take shortcuts and do unoptimised code (same for perms)
-Its likely you will be assigned to a partially completed project that is difficult to complete (same for perms although perhaps less frequent)
-You will be disadvantaged due to lack of business knowledge and contacts (not necessarily, perhaps less knowledge of the specific organisation but contractors arguably have a bigger network than perms who have been at the same place for years)
-You are liable for the solution after you leave (fair enough)
-You wont be in the immediate loop for IT changes that can break what youre working on (same for perms)
-You are a scapegoat when the companies intended project is quite unfeasible (more likely for contractors, granted, but the impact is less severe for contractors because they can just move on to a new contract rather than remaining at the place they are a scapegoat)
-There will be times you have days of meetings and no progress is made (same for perms)
-Many many more

AS for the OP, IR35 should definitely be a consideration. My employer has historically had a lot of outside-IR35 contractors (many long term) but this is likely to change.
 
Associate
Joined
24 Mar 2011
Posts
305
Location
Sherwood Forest
^Half of the above can apply to permanent roles though:

-Travel (admittedly more predictable for perm)
-Not 9-5 (I don't see much difference in working hours between perms and contractors)
-You will have strict deadlines that must be met, meaning you have to take shortcuts and do unoptimised code (same for perms)
-Its likely you will be assigned to a partially completed project that is difficult to complete (same for perms although perhaps less frequent)
-You will be disadvantaged due to lack of business knowledge and contacts (not necessarily, perhaps less knowledge of the specific organisation but contractors arguably have a bigger network than perms who have been at the same place for years)
-You are liable for the solution after you leave (fair enough)
-You wont be in the immediate loop for IT changes that can break what youre working on (same for perms)
-You are a scapegoat when the companies intended project is quite unfeasible (more likely for contractors, granted, but the impact is less severe for contractors because they can just move on to a new contract rather than remaining at the place they are a scapegoat)
-There will be times you have days of meetings and no progress is made (same for perms)
-Many many more

Some good replies, especially that perms lack business knowledge too ;) i think my thoughts are are along the lines that it is "more likely". Have seen all the above happen regularly, and can now see that it does happen to perms, albeit in a less cut throat way.
 
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