5 ms·

Contractors still do a bit better than employees, though HMRC keep talking about seriously cracking down on the practice.

sjg007 8y ago
Cracking down seems like a bad idea.. you lose dynamic flexibility on both sides. What would the upside be?
- baq 8y ago
  Taxes mostly and fairness towards people who are actually employed.
  - sjg007 8y ago
    In the US you pay more to freelance in taxes than you do as an employee (because the employer pays some on your behalf) but you can have other deductions as a contractor. So I think fairness is not specifically a sufficient motivator. The UK can have a tax advantage for freelancing but these freelancers lose out on employment protections. Dunno..
    - walshemj 8y ago
      US contractors don't seem to get anything - they seem to think getting a 20% premium over FTE is good. In the UK you would normally expect 3x for a short 6 month contract.
      - sjg007 8y ago
        Right but UK salaries are about 2-3x lower than US (at least for software engineers).. or at least they use to be.
- walshemj 8y ago
  Its interesting that they are not clamping down a "self" employed barristers, I wonder why that might be. I suspect IT contractors are not seen as real professionals in the British class structure
jgr447 8y ago
> Contractors still do a bit better than employees Curious if that is actually true when comparing to tier 1 banks/hedge funds full time employee salaries+bonus+retirement+healthcare. Assume 600 GBP/day * 22 day/month * 10 months (realistically) full time work, that's 132k/yr. From that take out accounting, illness, insurance, healthcare, retirement, travel, possibly more. All things considered, once you get above 100k base as employee contracting becomes less attractive. Strictly as a money move that is, there's other dimensions for sure.
- lemming 8y ago
  600 seems low - I earned a lot more than that back in the day, and that was a long time ago. A quick search of jobserve.com for just "java" found roles quoting up to 750 on the first page, and if you're any good that'll be negotiable. And if you get into even slightly niche things (Oracle Coherence, in my case) the rates are much higher.
  - jgr447 8y ago
    I don't think it's very far from the reality of your full stack app developer though. Ie. 900+GBP/day is listed rarely and for very specific/niche things. Then, the more niche it is the more likely it is that the downtime between contracts becomes longer I imagine. Curious what your anecdotal experience has been, to the extent that it can be shared.

sjg007 8y ago

Cracking down seems like a bad idea.. you lose dynamic flexibility on both sides. What would the upside be?

baq 8y ago
Taxes mostly and fairness towards people who are actually employed.
- sjg007 8y ago
  In the US you pay more to freelance in taxes than you do as an employee (because the employer pays some on your behalf) but you can have other deductions as a contractor. So I think fairness is not specifically a sufficient motivator. The UK can have a tax advantage for freelancing but these freelancers lose out on employment protections. Dunno..
  - walshemj 8y ago
    US contractors don't seem to get anything - they seem to think getting a 20% premium over FTE is good. In the UK you would normally expect 3x for a short 6 month contract.
    - sjg007 8y ago
      Right but UK salaries are about 2-3x lower than US (at least for software engineers).. or at least they use to be.
walshemj 8y ago
Its interesting that they are not clamping down a "self" employed barristers, I wonder why that might be. I suspect IT contractors are not seen as real professionals in the British class structure

jgr447 8y ago

> Contractors still do a bit better than employees Curious if that is actually true when comparing to tier 1 banks/hedge funds full time employee salaries+bonus+retirement+healthcare. Assume 600 GBP/day * 22 day/month * 10 months (realistically) full time work, that's 132k/yr. From that take out accounting, illness, insurance, healthcare, retirement, travel, possibly more. All things considered, once you get above 100k base as employee contracting becomes less attractive. Strictly as a money move that is, there's other dimensions for sure.

lemming 8y ago
600 seems low - I earned a lot more than that back in the day, and that was a long time ago. A quick search of jobserve.com for just "java" found roles quoting up to 750 on the first page, and if you're any good that'll be negotiable. And if you get into even slightly niche things (Oracle Coherence, in my case) the rates are much higher.
- jgr447 8y ago
  I don't think it's very far from the reality of your full stack app developer though. Ie. 900+GBP/day is listed rarely and for very specific/niche things. Then, the more niche it is the more likely it is that the downtime between contracts becomes longer I imagine. Curious what your anecdotal experience has been, to the extent that it can be shared.