5 ms·
I mean this in the nicest way possible, but it's easy to say money isn't everything when you're already earning £120k/$140k pa.
by trhoad 4y ago
I mean this in the nicest way possible, but it's easy to say money isn't everything when you're already earning £120k/$140k pa.
- was_a_dev 4y agoYeah I exhaled slightly when reading they're in the >97th percentile for UK salaries. Modest earnings
- karamanolev 4y agoThis is apples to oranges and therefore false. Contracting has much much more deductions from the base rate than salaries. At the very least, with 20 days (1 month) off, you start off with a 11/12 coefficient. Then there's buying your own benefits, dealing with your own accounting, i.e. maybe paying an accountant or otherwise investing the time to do it yourself, which in turn reduces the number of hours you have to actually, you know, contract. They aren't in the 97th percentile.
- was_a_dev 4y agoFair. Let's be realistic, or even conservative. 90th percentile? (£58k)
- EddySchauHai 4y agoI think any contract developer will be on the 95%+ percentile. When I started contracting in my mid-20s I was in the UKs 1% for a 40 hour gig done from my bedroom desk. It’s pretty mental.
- was_a_dev 4y agoYeah my points above all stand, despite people silently disagreeing. No issue with those salaries. With contract work you're providing a much need service. Just don't pretend those salaries are what they are.
- Retric 4y agoThat’s assuming they can work 240 days a year, contracting normally has significant unpaid downtime and of course zero benefits.
- mattmanser 4y agoNot really, the rule of thumb most contractors talk about is plan around 220 days per year (44 weeks).
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Retric 4y agoEven the 10% pay cut you suggest vs the numbers mentioned seems like a significant difference to me.
- jokethrowaway 4y agoThat's true in theory but the software market has been pretty good for the last 15 years. The only holidays I took were when I was an employee and I wasn't quitting that year (you get them in cash otherwise).
- noodlesUK 4y agoI seriously doubt parent is earning that much. I expect they probably bill avg 10-15 days per month at that rate. Most contractors like them in the UK that I know operate this way most of the time.
- elliekelly 4y agoAnd there are lots of expenses.
- trhoad 4y agoContracted for a few years. Almost zero expenses (a new laptop, an accountant, some PL insurance).
- Nextgrid 4y agoNot an accountant, but I believe if you’re working on a side-project you can expense a lot (essentially, the side project is just another service your company offers) and thus you can “expense” (not technically expensing because it’s paid by the company in the first place) a lot of stuff - hardware, cloud bills, software licenses, etc.
- kinnth 4y agoAgree with this. Contractor expenses are low. You can run a lot more through your biz if you want (travel, food, computers) but over the long term i'd say it\s 80-90% profit.
- trhoad 4y agoMost (all) the contractors I know can bill £500 per day outside IR35 pretty much indefinitely.
- phphphphp 4y ago£500/day is the rate for software engineering contractors in the UK that guarantees a continuous stream of work: it would be trivial for someone to bill 100% of billable days in a year at that rate. I don't know anybody who only bills 10 - 15 days per month, I personally bill ~21 on average per month and I am always fully booked (I turn down work). All you need is a profile on LinkedIn and you'll get a constant stream of offers at £500/day -- no reputation or relationships required. Anybody billing 10 - 15 days per month is doing so out of choice.
- bawolff 4y agoAll they said was money isn't everything. They didn't say money is nothing.
- omginternets 4y agoI think you and the parent poster are in agreement, insofar as much of HN is simultaneously displeased with their professional life whilst trying to go fro £140k to £240k per annum.
- dmje 4y agoHa, sadly that's not how a (my) day rate works. I am very comfortable, but take home maybe £60k p/a. It's a very nice salary for me, but in the world of many it's not huge :-)
- muzani 4y agoThat is literally their point - past a certain rate, you should be optimizing for something other than pay.