Benefits of Contracting
What is a contractor?
Being a contractor is very different from being employed in the traditional sense. Contracting for some individuals is ideal but for some the loss of financial security and social continuity is frightening. In the IT sector becoming a contractor is a popular method of employment.
What are the benefits of contracting?
Contracting shares many benefits such as:
- Freedom. Contractors have greater flexibility and can take longer time off
- IT contractor jobs are often suitable for international workers, looking for jobs in the UK, who have the right skills but do not want to commit long term
- Gaining new experiences and knowledge with different contracts
- Greater control over the development of your skills-set and the direction of your career
- Less involvement in office politics
- Contractors who take professional advice can also greatly reduce the amount of tax they pay.
- Making strong connections in various industries
What are the financial benefits of contracting?
In certain fields such as the IT industry, contracting is sometimes paid significantly more than permanent roles in the same field. In some cases this can be as much as two or three times over a similar time period.
Contracting sometimes also has the benefit of weekly rather than monthly pay, meaning you receive more regular payments for your work.
Some examples of the average current market contractor daily rates with their associated rise or fall % on same period as last year for some IT professionals:
- Telecoms contractor £361 up 4.71%
- Engineering contractor £429 up 3.59%
- Oracle contractor £413 down 1.71%
- SAP contractor £478; up 3.37%
- Murex contractor £682; up 11.70%
- Linux contractor £400 up 0.92%
- Java contractor £462 up 2.04%
- C++ contractor £525 up 1.34%
- C# contractor £429 down 4.16%
What do clients look for in a contractor?
People who are successful as contractors are typically:
- Deadline orientated
- Able to learn quickly and adapt to a companies culture
- Are excellent communicators
- Pro-active problem solvers
- Have reasonably flexible personal commitments and willing to do overtime if required
- Have up-to-date skills set inline with the their type of work
- Can start new contracts quickly
To read more information on becoming a contractor you can visit specialist sites like www.contractoruk.co.uk. These sites have excellent bulletin boards where resident experts are on hand to answer most questions.
Contractor Insurance
IT contractors often need to consider purchasing contractor insurance cover such as professional indemnity or business liability. Leading broker, Caunce O’Hara offer packages tailored to IT contractors through Technojobs. Click here to get a quote.
IT contract Jobs
Start your IT contract jobs search here
Data Source: IT Jobs Watch: www.itjobswatch.co.uk 30th January 2008
You may also be interested in the following article:
Contractor Liability Insurance
Further information on Technojobs:
- Technojobs is an award winning specialist IT and Technical recruitment site
- Online since 1999
- Thousands of quality jobs in the IT Jobs, Electronics Jobs, Engineering Jobs and Telecoms Jobs industries
- Over 18,000 new jobs online every month
- Register your CV for Quick apply & Jobs by Email facility
- Technojobs blog – Commenting on the IT job market
- Technojobs on social media: follow us on Twitter @TechnojobsUK
