[andrewstuart]

Exactly correct, except in contracting in which often the recruiter is trying to sell high (to the employer) and buy low (from the contractor) and the recruiter pockets the difference, and often tries to hide the true numbers to each side of the deal.

[pc86]

Yes absolutely, I've been on both sides of this (the contractor being "sold" as well as employing short-term contract developers through an agency like this). I will say though that a couple of times where I was able to find out how much the client was paying for me, there wasn't as big of a gap as I had expected - I think the largest was about 6%, and when I was a lead my employer was losing about $15/hr on me. I have to assume the team as a whole was profitable enough that they weren't that concerned with it.

[mgkimsal]

That seems awfully low. The times when I've found out that info, it's tended to be ~15-20-25%.

[pc86]

All the times I was able to find or figure out both numbers it was state government related, so that probably played a role. Wouldn't surprise me if private sector was 2-3x higher margins across the board, for everyone.

[mgkimsal]

have dealt with state govt too, and yeah... that makes a lot more sense.