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"... accordingly, they cost more." I disagree with this. Contractors pay a significant price by leaving a full time job. No benefits, no company sponsored talks

"... accordingly, they cost more." I disagree with this. Contractors pay a significant price by leaving a full time job. No benefits, no company sponsored talks,training, no paid time off. The extra buck you make contracting is not extra.

aidos 11y ago
That's very true. And with full time staff there's also all the NI stuff to deal with (in the UK). Having said that, there's a general attitude from employers (at least everywhere I've worked) of "I'm paying this person £400 a day, they'd better be good." I've been on both sides, and from the employers side you're definitely willing to cut staff a lot more slack than contractors (though that may be totally irrational).
aggieben 11y ago
For people who have problems with innumeracy (and lacking a tax advisor's phone number, I guess) this can be a real problem. For the rest of us, it's not that hard to figure out what those things cost, add it to how much you want to make, and then divide by 2000 to figure out an hourly rate. The real price of contracting isn't the loss of benefits, but the increased burden of providing those things for yourself (if they were that important to you in the first place). The real reward is: freedom. You can provide any/all/none of those things for yourself as you see fit. All presuming you have work, of course ;-)
- gknoy 11y ago
  I'm not a contractor, but wouldn't dividing by 2000 be a bit excessive? That would be 40 hours x 50 weeks, and everything I've read about contracting implies that you cannot bank on having constant work like that.
  - tonyarkles 11y ago
    I usually divide by 1,000 when I'm working out those numbers, to account for time spent finding clients, lulls, etc. Sometimes it's really nice to just take the afternoon off, and it's really nice when that's already factored into your rate.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - adamconroy 11y ago
    I've been contracting since 1997 and I haven't had a single day without employment. Except when I've chosen to have a holiday. My secret has been to do such a good job that the client finds me indispensable and then leave on my terms, always with another gig lined up. Sometimes I've had to stay with clients for many months when I'd rather move on. Once I was working for a client that had a smell like they were going broke so I had to ruthlessly extract myself before my contract was due to expire, but that proved to be a good decision as a few months later nobody was being paid and were suddenly out of work. I worked in a permanent role for 6 years before contracting, and I doubt it would be a good idea to do it with no experience. My first contract was acquired through an agency, and probably 50% of my work is through an agency, the rest is word of mouth and doing more work for former clients.
    - sciguy77 11y ago
      What's the agency? How does it work?
  - jwynia 11y ago
    I bill an average of 1816 hours a year. 10 holidays, 3 weeks of vacation, 3 sick days and a week a year finding new gigs. That's been the case for the last 12 years.
    - hobarrera 11y ago
      Sounds like 219 weekdays, at a rate of 8.5hs per day. 8.5hs sounds a bit too much to do on a daily basis.

aidos 11y ago

That's very true. And with full time staff there's also all the NI stuff to deal with (in the UK). Having said that, there's a general attitude from employers (at least everywhere I've worked) of "I'm paying this person £400 a day, they'd better be good." I've been on both sides, and from the employers side you're definitely willing to cut staff a lot more slack than contractors (though that may be totally irrational).

aggieben 11y ago

For people who have problems with innumeracy (and lacking a tax advisor's phone number, I guess) this can be a real problem. For the rest of us, it's not that hard to figure out what those things cost, add it to how much you want to make, and then divide by 2000 to figure out an hourly rate. The real price of contracting isn't the loss of benefits, but the increased burden of providing those things for yourself (if they were that important to you in the first place). The real reward is: freedom. You can provide any/all/none of those things for yourself as you see fit. All presuming you have work, of course ;-)

gknoy 11y ago
I'm not a contractor, but wouldn't dividing by 2000 be a bit excessive? That would be 40 hours x 50 weeks, and everything I've read about contracting implies that you cannot bank on having constant work like that.
- tonyarkles 11y ago
  I usually divide by 1,000 when I'm working out those numbers, to account for time spent finding clients, lulls, etc. Sometimes it's really nice to just take the afternoon off, and it's really nice when that's already factored into your rate.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- adamconroy 11y ago
  I've been contracting since 1997 and I haven't had a single day without employment. Except when I've chosen to have a holiday. My secret has been to do such a good job that the client finds me indispensable and then leave on my terms, always with another gig lined up. Sometimes I've had to stay with clients for many months when I'd rather move on. Once I was working for a client that had a smell like they were going broke so I had to ruthlessly extract myself before my contract was due to expire, but that proved to be a good decision as a few months later nobody was being paid and were suddenly out of work. I worked in a permanent role for 6 years before contracting, and I doubt it would be a good idea to do it with no experience. My first contract was acquired through an agency, and probably 50% of my work is through an agency, the rest is word of mouth and doing more work for former clients.
  - sciguy77 11y ago
    What's the agency? How does it work?
- jwynia 11y ago
  I bill an average of 1816 hours a year. 10 holidays, 3 weeks of vacation, 3 sick days and a week a year finding new gigs. That's been the case for the last 12 years.
  - hobarrera 11y ago
    Sounds like 219 weekdays, at a rate of 8.5hs per day. 8.5hs sounds a bit too much to do on a daily basis.