Anyone here a contractor?

Looking to leave my current job and become and self employed contractor, but im unsure of how well ill do in the market as a 24 year old, seems to me every contractor i meet is at least 30 most with 10 years + experience.

My main commerical experience is in VB/.net SQL Server, COM+ etc
but i have good knowledge of C, ASP, XML blah blah.

My question is does anyone have any good advice or guidence from their own experiences.

Ive trawled through the job sites and there seems to be plently of work for my skills, plus i work in London already so there alot of work round here.

Just really unsure and due to debts and bills etc can't really afford to be out of work, at the same time £350 a day sounds quite appealing to me

The idea with contractor rates is you get paid inflated rates compared to permies to offset any sick pay and other benefits thats permies get. I started contracting when I was 24 and now coming up for 26 and you'd be surprised how much you can drag down especially if your prepared to work in London.

Admittedly im not a coder, I do more on the AD and infrastructure side but I wouldnt imagine there was a big divide.

There are companies that will manage you tax and VAT for you at very reasonable rates, you dont have to go down the road of limited company and VAT returns.

Don't sell the contracting route short.

In my experience, full time work is usually as temporary as contracting work -- until the project is complete.


Go whatever route pays, imho. I have been burned more as a full time employee than as a contractor and I always command more respect as a contractor (e.g. when I say I don't work without written and signed documentation, it doesn't get ignored when a contractor says it, and often is ignored when requested by regular employees -- the pecking order syndrome).

That's my tour of the duty. No risk, no reward.

If you've got the skills and the confidence then there's nothing to stop you being a contractor. In general the difficulty with contracting is that you are expected to be productive straight away while as an employee they'll give you time or training to ramp up to full productivity.

i dont have a degree but have other industry related qualifications.

I have about 5+ years with VB and SQL

Im not earning bad money at the moment but contracting pay is alot more also I get bored easy and like the idea of getting experience with different systems and comapnies.

Also would like to be my own boss as would everyone, i know the drawbacks like no sick/holiday pay etc but the pros outweight the cons as long as you can get the work.

So people honestly recommend against it because to me it seems a better way to earn more money and im wasting away being employed by someones else

The nice thing about contracting is that you can leave and go do something else when you finish. You can accept and decline jobs / work orders at your discretion.  The bad thing is that work isn't always available and you need to keep a bit saved.

I did some contract work through these guys: http://www.e-technicians.net - though I think they're only in the US.  The pay's not too bad, but it's not too stable either.

Then again if the project/product isn't needed anymore...you can get laid off at the drop of a hat. We just laid off 20 contractors, none pulled their weight so they went.

In my view if you're going into contracting just to make more money you're heading for a fall. If you're going into it because you want more control over your working life, your job is your passion, you like variety and risk taking then it's absolutely the way to go. However the business is extremely volatile, involves a lot of hard work and a lot of luck too.

The pluses tend to have minuses too:
+ more money on the surface - no money at all if you get sick or work short contracts and are looking for a new contract at a bad time
+ more flexibility in down time (longer periods available) - less flexibility in down time (contracts tend to be short even though the associated down time is the same as when between permanent jobs)

I worked as a permie for 20 years before becoming a contractor (more through accident than through choice) and wouldn't go back unless forced to (which is always a possibility in a fragile market and with the contract market being, like the permie market, extremely ageist) because the pluses are huge
+ choice in training instead of waiting and hoping your company will give you that cheap course they negotiated
+ choice in hardware and software tools with VAT being reclaimable
+ more experience and variety
+ more money (in theory)

As a contractor I've been able to do things I would never have been able to do as a permie (attended TechEd Europe, PDC, took 3 months out to learn .Net, took time out between contracts to get skydiving license, do a New Zealand tour etc)

On the subject of money you need to remember that you're running a business and like any business you need to invest some of your profits to ensure earnings in future years. And you need to market yourself (which might mean - shock! horror! - not charging your client for every hour you work even though in theory you're on an hourly rate). I'm amazed how cheap some contractors are with regard to never buying books, taking training courses or buying tools to help with their work and insisting on billing for every hour or only working the agreed hours when all the permies around them on lower salaries are doing unpaid overtime. And then they wonder why permies hate them so much! I've met contractors who complain they find it hard to be on Channel 9 because of firewall restrictions at work - sorry guys you shouldn't be going anywhere near Channel 9 in your client's time - you're ripping your client off and aren't being paid an hourly rate to surf Channel 9. Invariably in my experience such contractors hit a rough patch fairly quickly and find they have to go back to being permies the minute a short-term demand in the industry is over.

But if you love the industry, work hard (and are happy with having no life ), don't mind working away from home (ie travelling to where the work is), are happy at risk taking and making your own choices it can't be beaten in my experience. The irony is that as a permie I never stayed anywhere for more than 2 years (I got bored quickly) with one exception (Amdahl where I could change jobs within the one company). In my life as a contractor I've started several 8 week contracts that ended up turning into contracts that lasted for more than 2 years and only ended because I felt I needed to move on (I should add this is as much down to luck of the specific contracts as hard work or any kind of ability on my side).