241–250 of 328 posts
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That’s assuming they can work 240 days a year, contracting normally has significant unpaid downtime and of course zero benefits.
Not really, the rule of thumb most contractors talk about is plan around 220 days per year (44 weeks).
I recommend Weekly Rate Consulting[0] About four years ago a friend of mine, who specializes in personal brand consultation, suggested whatever my hourly was that I double it. I didn't believe her. I doubled it and landed the first proposal. You're probably worth more than you think. Specialization can increase your rate, but business sense, communication, and ability to articulate and contribute value at the executi…
> About four years ago a friend of mine, who specializes in personal brand consultation, suggested whatever my hourly was that I double it. I didn't believe her. I doubled it and landed the first proposal. Doubling your rate is really only an option when you’re already charging too little or if you’re dealing with clients who have no idea what market rate actually is. I encourage everyone to explore incrementally hig…
I imagine a not quite bell curve with the center around ~150/hr for “accomplish X task and leave” contracts that I’m willing to entertain. Sometimes you bump into some juicy ones, sometimes not. That’s life.
I’ve always told clients that above all else, they’re paying for my ability to provide them certainty, quality, and a hard deadline. I charge what I charge because I’m worth it.
Depending on your reputation, if applicable, it can however be smart to work below your worth for a contract if it means a greater chance at better contracts later. You gotta build your network somehow.
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I seriously doubt parent is earning that much. I expect they probably bill avg 10-15 days per month at that rate. Most contractors like them in the UK that I know operate this way most of the time.
£500/day is the rate for software engineering contractors in the UK that guarantees a continuous stream of work: it would be trivial for someone to bill 100% of billable days in a year at that rate. I don't know anybody who only bills 10 - 15 days per month, I personally bill ~21 on average per month and I am always fully booked (I turn down work). All you need is a profile on LinkedIn and you'll get a constant strea…
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.
Have an annual salary in mind for a similar role, chop off the last three zeros, and that's my hourly rate. It works out to approximately double which is just enough to account for things you would normally get from an employer: - payroll taxes (SS/Medicare) - PTO/sick days - equipment & supplies - training/conferences - health insurance - retirement savings Etc
Yes! Long ago I read a book that mentioned that freelance professionals (accountants, lawyers, etc) tended to bill around 1000 hours per year. That the unbillable time went toward sales, client relations, marketing, learning, etc. I could usually do a little better than a 50% utilization rate for myself, but as you say that money goes to things most people don't have to pay. So the knock-three-zeros-off-salary rule s…
Everyone here is so incredibly focused on money as the primary motivator, which I guess given the thread question makes some sense. But I'd like to just put in a little word for money not being everything, and client type / work type actually being a really important part of the equation. HN is a forum where increasingly I see posts every single day about the high level of misery in tech / how can I get out of this r…
I mean this in the nicest way possible, but it's easy to say money isn't everything when you're already earning £120k/$140k pa.
in the uk, everyone wants to work on daily rates. 600pd-650pd as a devops engineer. So, £75, or $86 an hour. This is 5 days a week, 40 hours a week. I bill around £14k a month and after taxes i walk away with about £7k a month.
I specialize in the ability to competently and fully build from the ground up your whole business from design, development, system administration, deployments, testing, seo and other stuff as a single person. My rate is $10,000/week pre-paid monthly.
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There are definitely companies in the UK that will pay competitive rates for tech. $70/hr is lower than the median contracting rates for the UK, and I'd be suspicious if someone with 20 years experience was that cheap. I'd expect at minimum to be paying 1000 GBP/day.
I had 15 years of experience when I last updated my rates - and I chronically undervalue myself. I’m responsible for the better part of a billion pounds of revenue, without exaggeration, across my clients, over the decades. Part of the issue I’ve faced is that I usually start working with folks when they’re 2-3 people, and I grow them - but my rates end up stuck at the 2-3 people company level, not at the 1000+ perso…
I hate to say it, but you need to get over that. This very mindset has screwed me over more times than I care to think about. I'm in the $2B+ generated revenue part of my career. I've got a lot of scars, bruises and broken dreams that brought me here. Built an entire start-up, that sold for $256M, got screwed out of $2M. That was on the low-end of what I've lost in various endeavours. And I have stupidly made that mistake several times. Over the years I've learned some hard lessons.
I now take the approach that "I charge this much per day/week for my time, if you cannot afford that and wish to give me equity in lieu of (some of) my pay, these are my terms." And I don't do 4 year vesting with 1 year cliff. If I am taking a significant pay cut, e.g. 60% to 70% from my usual day rate, the cliff is 90 days on an accelerated vesting schedule. And it is a grant, not options, I'm not giving back money to get what I earned.
You also need to start negotiating your contracts to have a quaterly or bi-annual rate increase from "I'm doing you a solid here with a big discount" so that three years later, after built all the tech for the start-up, you aren't earning less than the Junior who struggles to remember the difference between margins and offsets. On client discounts (I've stopped giving them except where large chunks of equity are concerned), you can backload them too, so that should the client cut you loose because you bumped your rate by 10% last year, as stated in your contract, they pay a termination fee. Some clients will balk and nope out, those clients you don't want. It took me decades to figure out I was allowed to say "no" to potential work.
Right now I am charging less than what I have in the past, $1,000/day as opposed to $1,600 to $2,000/day, because I need some stress free time, and at 6pm, I turn off my computer and forget about my work.
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Any thoughts or concerns on how to deal with inflationary environment and the falling Euro?
I'm based in Germany, so the tax pressure is quite high, thinking of moving back to Italy (where I'm originally from) to benefit of the massive tax break for "returning Italians" (or anti brain drain tax advantages).
In Europe your best options are Malta (5% corp tax + progressive rates on what you spend and keep everything in the company until you leave and withdraw at 0% from eg. Dubai) or Cyprus (12 corp tax +2.5% dividends tax).
I'd consider Montenegro as well if it makes sense for you or other eastern European countries.