Programming - How to judge one's capability / level / salary

[Lord Percy]

I mean proper proper countryside. I grew up in North Yorkshire

To be fair Oxford is alright. The little roads around Whitney are like a whole other country to me. Thatched roof cottages etc. No idea about Kent though.

[P.]

Good for stabbings. It isn't bad.

Worth checking some jobs in London, some very good paying stuff for intermediate levels, it'd be silly to not consider

[Lord Percy]

Been offered a job Software engineer for an interesting company right next to the Yorkshire Dales.

Salary offer was strange, but I think I got the best out of it. Since it was done via a recruitment agency, I was given two options:

1. Permanent contract with the employer at £25k
2. Contractor style work where I'm paid a £150 daily rate, which works out at £31k-£39k, depending on number of sick/holiday days taken.

The reason the employer would only offer 25k is because they would have to pay 25% up front to the recruiter, so I'd be costing them at least 31k no matter what.

Anyone on here have experience with these things? It seems option 2 is vastly better. I know I'm foregoing pension etc, but it still seems like the obvious choice. It was described as "12 months contract-to-permanent", meaning after 12 months if they want to keep me I can carry on with the same level of salary, but with permanent contract. They have two staff who've already gone this route so it doesn't seem like a bluff.

This has been a very interesting week either way. I put my CV up on cv-library and have since been utterly swamped by recruiters. I don't even mind if this new job doesn't work out, there's obviously tons of stuff out there. I've never had such leverage in the jobs market, what a boon!

As for the London option, I'm still considering that and did in fact have a recruiter contact me yesterday telling me he had roles up to 120k, which I still can't get my head around. But life is good and cheap up in Yorkshire so maybe that 31-39k is enough, and with none of the London rat race to contend with.

[Hetzer]

[P.]

Companies can just ditch the recruiter. Just say you weren't what they were looking for and employ direct.

Seems backwards, I'd be asking for a sizeable pay rise after a year anyway..

[Lord Percy]

[MarJay]

I'm not sure you can really live on £25k these days... But watch out for the contract side, as you could get hammered by IR35 regs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IR35
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[Lord Percy]

[MarJay]

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[Lord Percy]

[P.]

Sounds like you'll be doing more work for low money, personally wouldn't bother but I don't know your situation. I'd be able to live on 16 hours a week min wage, but it's just lucky to be able to

[Lord Percy]

Yeah there are mild alarm bells ringing, but the work looks genuinely interesting so that's why I'm not wanting to jump ship immediately. It's an environmental software consultancy doing science/analysis stuff in loads of geographical areas. Flood analysis, weather warnings, tidal survey, earthworks mapping, etc, at the national level. Sounds like an interesting place.

I still have a whole line of recruiters jumping down my throat with possible opportunities, but the jobs are all fairly standard corporate stuff - the kind of work which will almost certainly still be available if I find myself wanting to change jobs 12 months down the line.

I've learned to live on peanuts for quite some time now. I always told myself anything over 25k would be 'enough', so the offer I'm looking at is already in the right ball park, in fact well above it!

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[Lord Percy]

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[Lord Percy]

I know what Limited means. I was simply responding using the terminology you had used. I did read up on all the links, but was confused about how it applied to me - an understandable confusion, given that we've now ascertained that I am indeed not affected by it.

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[Lord Percy]

Maybe I used the wrong terminology. Like I said, it's all new to me. The recruiter used the word 'contract', so I used that word, but probably didn't apply it correctly.

Given what you've outlined, I think what I meant to say was:

1. Permanent full-time contract with the employer
2. Work under an umbrella company with the employer as a client for 12 months.

In both cases I think I would be correct in saying I am an employee, not a contractor.

It still seems a bit of a haphazard situation though.

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[Lord Percy]

Talked to recruiter again today and asked him about all this.

Specifically, I would be working as an employee of an umbrella company, who are contracted to send me to work for 12 months at the given location. I do my work and receive weekly pay slips, with tax and NI deducted as is standard for PAYE employees. The only additional 'bureaucracy' required of me is a weekly time sheet!

IR35 was discussed too - I do not come under it at all.

All is good.

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[Lord Percy]

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[Lord Percy]

The umbrella company is Churchill Knight, they seem to be mostly well reviewed: https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.churchill-knight.co.uk

As for benefits, I just filled out their registration form. Part of it stated I could arrange to set aside some of my daily rate such that I can take days off and still be paid in full for it. I opted out of that. I'd rather just have a day off and know plainly that that's a day of no income.

After 12 months there's a pension scheme too, but at that point I'll have finished the agreement with the recruiter and can shift over to a permanent full time contract at a fair salary with the company I'm working for.

I suspect this umbrella company has various setups for the way their members/"employees" want to work. I'm quite happy to go with a simple daily rate where 1 day = £X. It's how I've been doing it in Chinachinachina for the past couple of years anyway.