6 ms·

Lots of contracts in London are paying £350 a day. £350 / day * 48 working weeks of the year * 5 days a week = £84,000 / year. £55,498.64 in your pocket after

by marklit 14y ago

Lots of contracts in London are paying £350 a day. £350 / day * 48 working weeks of the year * 5 days a week = £84,000 / year. £55,498.64 in your pocket after tax. Compare this to ~5 - 10 years of working for peanuts in a startup hoping for an exit. Keep your eye on the clients who agree to short payment terms, forget the dreamers.

StavrosK 14y ago
In my experience, 350 was the low end. When recruiting, we couldn't get any decent people for under 400 (and I mean decent; 350 got us a Web front end developer who didn't know CSS). 400-450 did get us amazingly knowledgeable people, though, so that extra 50 was a small price to pay.
- cs02rm0 14y ago
  And if you want a reasonable back end developer then, well, even 450 is low end for a Java developer where I am a couple of hours outside London.
  - mgkimsal 14y ago
    Comparison for 'startups' isn't as appropriate, because most startup operations won't be using Java (at least not as a primary platform).
- marklit 14y ago
  Out of curiosity were you recruiting developers directly or going via a headhunter or agency? £350 that I see a lot is what's offered from headhunter emails filling my inbox everyday. They take a large margin for themselves as a finders fee.
  - StavrosK 14y ago
    Yeah, it was a recruiter. They probably did inflate the prices a lot, although I think they took some days' wages as a fee or something. I can't be sure.
kami8845 14y ago
blah blah blah. Same contracting comparison that gets thrown into seemingly every thread. As an employee you get work guaranteed, as a freelancer you have to work for every hour of work twice (once to get it, once to actually do it). You also have to do your own taxes, basically run your own business, but with only the shitty parts of it (no potential for growth, bureaucracy, scheduling, negotiating your pay all the time, often stepping into completely unknown & WTF code, solitude, the list goes on and on). Also who gives a fuck about money above 50k GBP? If you're young work a cool job, meet interesting people and learn lots of new stuff. Freelancing is almost never that. Working at a startup is, provided you pick the right one.
- analog 14y ago
  Contracting isn't freelancing though. In my experience contract gigs are pretty easy to find, and you don't have to work that hard to get them. Send off a CV to a few agencies, wait, that's it. If you're a consultant, spending time establishing thought leadership etc etc then yeah, but you'd be crazy to work for 350 per day in that case.
- kristiandupont 14y ago
  >as a freelancer you have to work for every hour of work twice This has not been my experience. I've been doing this for years and I don't think I've ever spent more than two weeks looking for a gig. Even during the current crisis the market is great for developers (here in Denmark at least). These projects have typically lasted three or four months. That makes me enough money to live off for the rest of the year which I have then spent travelling and working on my own projects.
- mgkimsal 14y ago
  "meet interesting people and learn lots of new stuff. Freelancing is almost never that." Not my experience. Freelancing is what you make of it. To get some experience you may do some boring stuff early on, but if you've got no or little experience your 'startup' will likely fail. 90% of the freelancing work I've done over the last few years has generally been 'learning new stuff' and 'meeting interesting people' in somewhat challenging problem domains (trucking logistics, education, etc). "Working at a startup is, provided you pick the right one." Freelancing is what you make of it. Find interesting projects.
werner34 14y ago
I've been freelancing in London and always calculate my yearly expected income by multiplying it with 200 to account for holiday, sick leave and general overhead. £350 * 200 = £70000 before taxes, I think £84000 is overly optimistic here.
- marklit 14y ago
  But 200 days means you're working 40 weeks of the year leaving 12 weeks for everything else. I know some contractors aren't always working but I work next to ten other python developers who are only on six month contracts. Notice periods are anywhere from a day in some places to a month in others. Same as employment really. Also, which startups here in the UK give you 12 weeks off a year?
  - werner34 14y ago
    It wasn't a startup, but my general consulting setup for several clients. Also, in those 12 weeks christmas, bank holidays and all that stuff were included. I think I worked more than 200 days in the end, but I like to calculate pessimistic and be positively surprised at the end of the year.
flurdy 14y ago
48 weeks * 5 days a week is really best case scenario. You have included 4 weeks of holiday, but not sickness, training courses, conferences, company admin, next contract sales and worst of all bench time between contracts. My calculation are you are down to 45 weeks after 5 weeks holiday and UK bank holidays. Add 5 days for illness, 7 days for courses and conferences, 1 day a month for admin, 3 days every 6 months for sales, and suddenly you are down to 39 weeks. Add at best 2 weeks of bench time as lining up new contracts perfectly is tricky and you are down to 37 weeks. £350 * 5 * 37 = 64,750 before tax. Then it is the whole consideration of whether you are within IR35, which basically taxes you more than a normal employee, and is very difficult to not be within if freelancing on longer contracts in the UK. Then accounting, insurance, hardware costs etc. You would have to be on some real long term contracts without benchtime, no illness, no training and no expenses to get towards you numbers. Working in Shoreditch myself I know most of the decent developers with 10 experience around here are earning a lot more than a contract guy would make on £350 per day.
- aidos 14y ago
  Contracting doesn't pay as much as freelancing. Lots of people contract fulltime at companies and ignore the IR35 issues (even though they shouldn't) for around £350/day. Freelancing is different. You have to deal with all of the issues you mention above, cost of sales etc (though, get yourself an accountant, seriously) but the reward is higher. You're doing things at your own pace and if you're good you can really focus to make solid profit. Contracting is just a regular hourly wage (and as you rightly point out, not always as good as it looks on the tin).
- marklit 14y ago
  You can use an umbrella company to do all your accounting. Ten minutes at the end of each week doing time sheets, 30 minutes each month submitted receipts for write offs. Equipment costs can be deducted from taxes so they can end up being extremely cheap or free. IR35 is a good point. If you have multiple contracts and don't work in any one place for more than two years you should avoid any questions around if it's really a contract or not. Most employed coders I know hardly stick around in a place for more than two years here in London.
martinced 14y ago
"Keep your eye on the clients who agree to short payment terms, forget the dreamers." OK but then also maybe forget HN and entrepreneurship?
- marklit 14y ago
  I'm not sure why I'd have to give up on HN. Not every posting here relates to entrepreneurship. I've found countless posts which have turned my attentions to new technologies. Those technologies ended up helping me find new contracts. I have met some talented developers who are keen to build a business of their dreams. I'm glad they're doing it as (1) they are trying to reach their goals in life and (2) they aren't competing with me for work :)

by marklit 14y ago

StavrosK 14y ago

In my experience, 350 was the low end. When recruiting, we couldn't get any decent people for under 400 (and I mean decent; 350 got us a Web front end developer who didn't know CSS). 400-450 did get us amazingly knowledgeable people, though, so that extra 50 was a small price to pay.

cs02rm0 14y ago
And if you want a reasonable back end developer then, well, even 450 is low end for a Java developer where I am a couple of hours outside London.
- mgkimsal 14y ago
  Comparison for 'startups' isn't as appropriate, because most startup operations won't be using Java (at least not as a primary platform).
marklit 14y ago
Out of curiosity were you recruiting developers directly or going via a headhunter or agency? £350 that I see a lot is what's offered from headhunter emails filling my inbox everyday. They take a large margin for themselves as a finders fee.
- StavrosK 14y ago
  Yeah, it was a recruiter. They probably did inflate the prices a lot, although I think they took some days' wages as a fee or something. I can't be sure.

kami8845 14y ago

blah blah blah. Same contracting comparison that gets thrown into seemingly every thread. As an employee you get work guaranteed, as a freelancer you have to work for every hour of work twice (once to get it, once to actually do it). You also have to do your own taxes, basically run your own business, but with only the shitty parts of it (no potential for growth, bureaucracy, scheduling, negotiating your pay all the time, often stepping into completely unknown & WTF code, solitude, the list goes on and on). Also who gives a fuck about money above 50k GBP? If you're young work a cool job, meet interesting people and learn lots of new stuff. Freelancing is almost never that. Working at a startup is, provided you pick the right one.

analog 14y ago
Contracting isn't freelancing though. In my experience contract gigs are pretty easy to find, and you don't have to work that hard to get them. Send off a CV to a few agencies, wait, that's it. If you're a consultant, spending time establishing thought leadership etc etc then yeah, but you'd be crazy to work for 350 per day in that case.
kristiandupont 14y ago
>as a freelancer you have to work for every hour of work twice This has not been my experience. I've been doing this for years and I don't think I've ever spent more than two weeks looking for a gig. Even during the current crisis the market is great for developers (here in Denmark at least). These projects have typically lasted three or four months. That makes me enough money to live off for the rest of the year which I have then spent travelling and working on my own projects.
mgkimsal 14y ago
"meet interesting people and learn lots of new stuff. Freelancing is almost never that." Not my experience. Freelancing is what you make of it. To get some experience you may do some boring stuff early on, but if you've got no or little experience your 'startup' will likely fail. 90% of the freelancing work I've done over the last few years has generally been 'learning new stuff' and 'meeting interesting people' in somewhat challenging problem domains (trucking logistics, education, etc). "Working at a startup is, provided you pick the right one." Freelancing is what you make of it. Find interesting projects.

werner34 14y ago

I've been freelancing in London and always calculate my yearly expected income by multiplying it with 200 to account for holiday, sick leave and general overhead. £350 * 200 = £70000 before taxes, I think £84000 is overly optimistic here.

marklit 14y ago
But 200 days means you're working 40 weeks of the year leaving 12 weeks for everything else. I know some contractors aren't always working but I work next to ten other python developers who are only on six month contracts. Notice periods are anywhere from a day in some places to a month in others. Same as employment really. Also, which startups here in the UK give you 12 weeks off a year?
- werner34 14y ago
  It wasn't a startup, but my general consulting setup for several clients. Also, in those 12 weeks christmas, bank holidays and all that stuff were included. I think I worked more than 200 days in the end, but I like to calculate pessimistic and be positively surprised at the end of the year.

flurdy 14y ago

48 weeks * 5 days a week is really best case scenario. You have included 4 weeks of holiday, but not sickness, training courses, conferences, company admin, next contract sales and worst of all bench time between contracts. My calculation are you are down to 45 weeks after 5 weeks holiday and UK bank holidays. Add 5 days for illness, 7 days for courses and conferences, 1 day a month for admin, 3 days every 6 months for sales, and suddenly you are down to 39 weeks. Add at best 2 weeks of bench time as lining up new contracts perfectly is tricky and you are down to 37 weeks. £350 * 5 * 37 = 64,750 before tax. Then it is the whole consideration of whether you are within IR35, which basically taxes you more than a normal employee, and is very difficult to not be within if freelancing on longer contracts in the UK. Then accounting, insurance, hardware costs etc. You would have to be on some real long term contracts without benchtime, no illness, no training and no expenses to get towards you numbers. Working in Shoreditch myself I know most of the decent developers with 10 experience around here are earning a lot more than a contract guy would make on £350 per day.

aidos 14y ago
Contracting doesn't pay as much as freelancing. Lots of people contract fulltime at companies and ignore the IR35 issues (even though they shouldn't) for around £350/day. Freelancing is different. You have to deal with all of the issues you mention above, cost of sales etc (though, get yourself an accountant, seriously) but the reward is higher. You're doing things at your own pace and if you're good you can really focus to make solid profit. Contracting is just a regular hourly wage (and as you rightly point out, not always as good as it looks on the tin).
marklit 14y ago
You can use an umbrella company to do all your accounting. Ten minutes at the end of each week doing time sheets, 30 minutes each month submitted receipts for write offs. Equipment costs can be deducted from taxes so they can end up being extremely cheap or free. IR35 is a good point. If you have multiple contracts and don't work in any one place for more than two years you should avoid any questions around if it's really a contract or not. Most employed coders I know hardly stick around in a place for more than two years here in London.

martinced 14y ago

"Keep your eye on the clients who agree to short payment terms, forget the dreamers." OK but then also maybe forget HN and entrepreneurship?

marklit 14y ago
I'm not sure why I'd have to give up on HN. Not every posting here relates to entrepreneurship. I've found countless posts which have turned my attentions to new technologies. Those technologies ended up helping me find new contracts. I have met some talented developers who are keen to build a business of their dreams. I'm glad they're doing it as (1) they are trying to reach their goals in life and (2) they aren't competing with me for work :)