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Becoming a contractor programmer in the UK

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Re: Becoming a contractor programmer in the UK

#31

Post by jackgavigan »

Nursie wrote: post #13

Why bother with a third party company registration service? You can do it yourself pretty easily through companies house. Do companiesmadesimple have any value-add? While I do share your cynicism about recruiters, I have also got most of my contracts through them. There are bad recruiters (vague job descriptions, never call you back) and there are good ones (We need someone here, you fit the bill, can we arrange a ti…

> Why bother with a third party company registration service?

Well, note the affiliate link...

Companies House charge £15 for setting up a company online. Most accountants include it in their service, and will let you use their address as your office/postal address if you want.

It may be different for developers but if you avoid recruiters, you're probably ignoring about half the job market for contracting.

Re: Becoming a contractor programmer in the UK

#32

Post by Stoo »

tommyd wrote: post #19
boothead wrote: post #3

Good advice, especially the bit about crunch. First time I contracted I let my accountant talk me into using their horrible spreadsheet. I couldn't make my self use it it was that bad and my accounts were a mess. Now my accountant (nimble jack) bundles freeagent (which when I looked into it was better than crunch and has an API) and keeping on top of things is much easier. One additional thing: If you're married make…

Other recommendations of accountants with decent online systems would be greatly appreciated. My current ones (Nixon Williams) seem fairly good as accountants, but the spreadsheet based expenses (and having to use email to take dividends, check profit/loss, etc) are getting quite annoying, and they want to charge extra to use their registered address rather than my own, which leaves a bit of a bad taste when Crunch i…

I've used Crunch since I began contracting towards the end of 2009. So I was one of their early customers. I would say their software keeps getting better but their service as a whole has worsened as they've got bigger. That's not to say their service is bad, it's just not as good as it was when they had less than 100 customers. I've had a couple of instances in the past (around two years ago) where I've had to correct my account manager when he's told me something I've known to be wrong.

Having said that, just about everything is automated or part of their software now and I haven't had to speak to anyone there since last summer. Maybe their service hasn't gotten any worse, it's just become less personal.

Re: Becoming a contractor programmer in the UK

#33

Post by ommunist »

Nursie wrote: post #13

Why bother with a third party company registration service? You can do it yourself pretty easily through companies house. Do companiesmadesimple have any value-add? While I do share your cynicism about recruiters, I have also got most of my contracts through them. There are bad recruiters (vague job descriptions, never call you back) and there are good ones (We need someone here, you fit the bill, can we arrange a ti…

/Nursie - companies that provide registration services save time. If you have time, you can diy registration, right. But generally they provide very convenient service. Besides, services like 9-10 Adam Street can also provide you conference rooms, club place etc., in addition to registration. There are many companies that will help you open Ltd in the UK fast, and very few that will help you to close the once opened company.

Disclaimer: recently volunteered to help to shut down UK limited company, I wished I'd used someone else.

Re: Becoming a contractor programmer in the UK

#34

Post by Nursie »

wumbernang wrote: post #20
Nursie wrote: post #13

Why bother with a third party company registration service? You can do it yourself pretty easily through companies house. Do companiesmadesimple have any value-add? While I do share your cynicism about recruiters, I have also got most of my contracts through them. There are bad recruiters (vague job descriptions, never call you back) and there are good ones (We need someone here, you fit the bill, can we arrange a ti…

They do all the annoying paperwork for you at the registration service like the initial transfer of directors capital and appointments and crap like that. It's worth it. (I've killed 5 limited companies now so I have lots of experience ;-) IR35 is the only PITA IMHO of doing all this and that's easily sorted by doing the odd phone/laptop repair at the same time and invoicing it.

>> IR35 is the only PITA IMHO of doing all this and that's easily sorted by doing the odd phone/laptop repair at the same time and invoicing it.

??

Oh, a phone/laptop repair for someone else, and invoicing them for it?

In just under three years I've taken on 5 contracts of varying lengths and billed for a small amount of casual consultancy work on the side too. I'm clearly not acting as an employee, hopefully I'm in the clear :)

Re: Becoming a contractor programmer in the UK

#35

Post by gadders »

rossriley wrote: post #10

In terms of the recruiters section, whilst I appreciate you may not have had a good experience, this is probably the way a lot of people get contracting work, at least until you have a fairly big network of contacts. I'd be more interested in knowing what agencies do have a good reputation / good developer experience along with the note to beware of the cowboys.

It depends on your market sector as well. Some agencies are better for banking contracts, others for, say, media.

I also think that it is worth forming a good relationship with a particular agent. Meet in person if you can so they can see you are someone who seems competent. And if you ever have a friend that is looking, it does no harm to refer them to a good agent you know.

Re: Becoming a contractor programmer in the UK

#36

Post by Nursie »

ommunist wrote: post #33
Nursie wrote: post #13

Why bother with a third party company registration service? You can do it yourself pretty easily through companies house. Do companiesmadesimple have any value-add? While I do share your cynicism about recruiters, I have also got most of my contracts through them. There are bad recruiters (vague job descriptions, never call you back) and there are good ones (We need someone here, you fit the bill, can we arrange a ti…

/Nursie - companies that provide registration services save time. If you have time, you can diy registration, right. But generally they provide very convenient service. Besides, services like 9-10 Adam Street can also provide you conference rooms, club place etc., in addition to registration. There are many companies that will help you open Ltd in the UK fast, and very few that will help you to close the once opened…

I was just looking at the site linked from the howto and couldn't see what they were giving me that using companies house directly didn't, for the simple case of company registration.

I haven't been through shutdown yet, so I'll take your word for it (and everyone else's!) that it's painful...

Re: Becoming a contractor programmer in the UK

#37

Post by hunglee2 »

Good to see recruiters getting some love on the comments here. If there remains a place for 3rd party recruiters its in the contract market. A few reasons:

Payments processing - a lot of employers will not want to deal with processing payments for contractors. Indeed, its often the main reason why they might go for contract vs permanent resource in the first place. I've seen situations where contractor and employer have discovered each other, only for the employer to then ask the contractor to 'go through agency X'. No one likes admin load and we'd all get rid of it if we can.

Reduce assessment load - job opportunities cycle much more frequently on the contract market - typically 3-6 months. This means a lot more time involved in opportunity sourcing / vetting, potentially a hugely time consuming exercise. A good recruiter will be able to filter these opportunities for you, and only get you the most suitable gigs

Reduce downtime - going without agencies entirely means relying on your own market gravity as a developer of renown to secure job opportunities. This is do-able for high profile developers, of course, especially those who live in metropolitan areas and are prominent on the open source / community / events scene. However, if you work on proprietary software, have heavy family obligations and live outside of a big city, you're probably going to find agents very useful indeed.

Salary / Rate negotations - they are going to take their 15-20%. But they may end up earning you more by negotiating hard with the end employer. Certainly an inexperienced contractor is at risk of being exploited, but that's true in whatever of the type of contract you sign. A good relationship with a trusted agent can really help you make more on your rate, especially if you are not a naturally comfortable at negotiating.

And I say all this as a maker of a tech hiring platform that doesn't allow 3rd party recruiters on it. They have their place - just a smaller one than they currently occupy.

Great article in all other areas

Re: Becoming a contractor programmer in the UK

#39

Post by Nursie »

hunglee2 wrote: post #37

Good to see recruiters getting some love on the comments here. If there remains a place for 3rd party recruiters its in the contract market. A few reasons: Payments processing - a lot of employers will not want to deal with processing payments for contractors. Indeed, its often the main reason why they might go for contract vs permanent resource in the first place. I've seen situations where contractor and employer h…

What's your platform?

The payments thing is important, and sometimes recruiters provide a useful buffer too - the end-client company might take their sweet time to pay, or be unreliable. Contracting through a third party provides you with a buffer and I know for a fact that I've been paid well ahead of the recruiter being paid on several occasions.

Re: Becoming a contractor programmer in the UK

#40

Post by zimpenfish »

boothead wrote: post #26
zimpenfish wrote: post #12

My advice would be to use an umbrella company and let them deal with all the tax hassles - they have an entire staff purely for this. You will take home slightly less (no opportunity for tax "optimisation" but I disagree with that on principle anyway) but then also have no exposure to HMRC coming after you 6 years later saying "Where's our £10,000?" (has happened to several people I know.) (edit for spelling)

You disagree with following the letter of the law and taking home extra thousands of pounds per year? Personally my attitude it that I'll apply whatever optimizations my accountant says I can without being too creative :-) Also, some companies that masquerade as umbrellas are doing some pretty shady things. If they promise some un-feasibly large percentage of take home pay (over 80%) they're probably doing some dodgy…

It's a moral/ethical stance, I guess - tax funds social infrastructure and I think we need more of that.

Good point about the shady "base pay + loan you never* have to repay" shenanigans - I suspect HMRC will be onto them soon enough though.

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