[Silhouette]

£500/day is the rate for software engineering contractors in the UK that guarantees a continuous stream of work

That might have been true pre-COVID but is even that rate a guarantee of much in a post-COVID world with the economic uncertainty we have now and so much pressure to do everything inside IR35? So many of the offers being made in the UK contract market now fall through and so many of the gigs are relatively short that even if you take a rate where you can work "continuously" you could actually be losing 1-2 months out of the year just from things like delayed starts, having several rounds of looking for the next gig in the same year, having "safe" contracts fall through unexpectedly, aborting a "done deal" that was advertised as outside IR35 but it turned out the client or recruiter had no idea how IR35 actually worked, etc.

We've been talking about this a lot in my network this year as it seems to be a recurring source of irritation for those who are still trying to work genuine freelance and outside IR35 contract gigs. A reasonable estimate for this year might be that 80% of gigs people have been approached about on LinkedIn or seen posted by agency recruiters never actually hired anyone and the time taken for a freelancer or contractor to find their next real gig is up maybe 50-100% compared to a couple of years ago.

[Nextgrid]

Python contractor here - in the current market, 500£/day is low enough that you can still bill the entire year if you’re not too picky as to what kind of work you take - just like the parent post, I have to turn down work constantly.

Indeed, the IR35 debacle and general downturn given the current events have put a damper on business, but at 500/day it’s still doable.

[Silhouette]

How fast are you arranging a new gig at the end of the last one lately? A lot of the negative stories I've been hearing seem to be about gigs only lasting a few months now instead of being 6/12 initially and maybe renewing like before. So then even if there's more work available straight away through your network you probably still end up having to do the interview dance several times per year and maybe losing a few days before the preferred start date for the new gig as well. Has that not been your recent experience?

If you're consistently managing to finish one gig on Friday and have a new one ready to start on the Monday without any downtime or excessive interviewing disruption then it seems you're doing better than several contractors I know at the moment. I think they typically do charge rates a bit higher than £500 though so maybe there's just less work available at that level or more competition for each gig.

[Nextgrid]

My experience wouldn't be representative - my rate is higher and I'm picky about the clients & projects I choose (I prefer quality over quantity and have long-running projects to take up all my downtime anyway).

What I meant to say is that given what's happening in my inbox, if you weren't picky about what work you take on, at the 500 mark you should still be able to fill up pretty much an entire year's worth of work by actually following up on all those emails.

> A lot of the negative stories I've been hearing seem to be about gigs only lasting a few months now instead of being 6/12 initially and maybe renewing like before

Agreed, though in my case I've always preferred short-term gigs so not really a problem in my book. I feel like if you need someone for 12+ months, it looks like an employee might be more appropriate.

> I think they typically do charge rates a bit higher than £500 though so maybe there's just less work available at that level or more competition for each gig.

Correct - I believe that in the current market, you can get a continuous stream of work at 500. Beyond that it gets tougher.