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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

Further information on Technojobs:

The UK's No.1 specialist IT and Technical recruitment site
Online since 1999
Thousands of quality jobs in the IT, Electronics, Engineering and Telecoms industries
Over 10,000 new jobs online every month
NEW job search-engine making it faster and easier to find and apply for the right job