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Becoming a contractor programmer in the UK
91–100 of 164 posts
Re: Becoming a contractor programmer in the UK
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
It depends on what your strategy is and the specifics of your situation. http://www.contractoruk.com/money/ifas_guide_avoiding_new_di... has a generic guide about the new dividend tax. IMHO, just get an accountant.
I have a popular one, and they are rubbish. I'm on my first contract and I have no idea what I'm doing tax-wise. After £10.6k in salary they say one could take £28.5k in dividends before higher tax kicks in. So what do people do with the rest? Accept hight tax or leave it in business bank account and wait for next tax year?
I just take what I want and pay higher tax as necessary. You still end up paying less than the average worker anyway since there are no NICs on the higher level of dividends. Other than that, I reinvest it into the business, but I can't be arsed with pensions.
Re: Becoming a contractor programmer in the UK
#93> You should have savings to cover at least 4 months of > your usual expenses. You will spend some money > establishing a company. It may take several weeks to > find your first contract. If you wanted to be extra safe, sure. I made the switch when I was heavily in debt, and it helped me get out of debt, so YMMV. > A service like www.formationsfactory.co.uk will make the > incorporation process easy. Actually it's su…
Does anyone have any experience with a company like Giant or similar? Do they allow contractors who remote work?
In the past I've worked under Giant and Parasol. I used Giant back in 2008 when I wasn't sure if I was staying in contracting for forever. All umbrellas are much of a muchness; there's a legal limit on how much tax efficiency they can help you with, so you'll take home the same with whoever you choose. In the long term a limited company is definitely the way to go.
Re: Becoming a contractor programmer in the UK
#94Adding my two cents. I have been a contractor for almost 3 years now. My personal opinion: - Contracting pays a lot more than a perm role. - You do not deal with politics, which is a major plus for me. - You do not hear about you not getting your promised y% bonus because company did not do x% business. - You are not worried about 'changing the world', the way you would in a startup. - working 4-6 years your asses of…
Good list. I would also add: - don't trust agents - don't trust agents One more thing: - don't trust agents If you find a half-honest one work with them as much as you can. They'll still try and screw you over but they might decide to be straight once in a while. I don't blame them in a way - the competition is fierce and matching client and contractor for happy outcomes is hard. But too many of them are willing to t…
I always used agents over 3.5 years and never had any problems.
They are sales people though, and obviously there are bad ones. However they are providing a service to you, (and their client), often contractors that go direct are on a worse rate, get paid a lot less frequently (3 months after each month, vs weekly in some cases) and have to deal with tedious internal HR processes.
Some times after you get used to the industry you have enough contacts to go direct, but initially an agent can really help you out.
Re: Becoming a contractor programmer in the UK
#95I moved from web dev perm jobs in the west mids, down to London and started contracting around 6 years ago. It's singlehandedly the best decision I ever made, tripling my salary. And bar a few of months after I went to Asia for a year (paid for by contracting), I've never had much trouble landing a new contract.
You can easily earn over 100k if you're any good in your field.
I was thinking about writing a post about the ins and outs of the London contract market.
Re: Becoming a contractor programmer in the UK
#96Good info. Does anyone have info or experience in seting up your ltd company overseas together with an overseas bank account.
Re: Becoming a contractor programmer in the UK
#97> You should have savings to cover at least 4 months of > your usual expenses. You will spend some money > establishing a company. It may take several weeks to > find your first contract. If you wanted to be extra safe, sure. I made the switch when I was heavily in debt, and it helped me get out of debt, so YMMV. > A service like www.formationsfactory.co.uk will make the > incorporation process easy. Actually it's su…
> For Central London, a developer should be asking for £300-£600/pd depending on seniority and what they're doing. That seems pretty low to me. Here in the Netherlands contract developers get about the same, between £400-£600/pd (actually between 70~90 euro/hour) but cost of living is way lower than in central London.
Where do you go for your contact leads in NL? I know the London market well but find it hard to find any decent Euro contracts.
Re: Becoming a contractor programmer in the UK
#98Great article, very thoughtful. But my biggest question is where do you find a client ? Is there a website (like a jobs website) for contract work, besides elance and the like ? Yeah, I can google it, but it's usually just a waste of time. Is there any serious place where an experienced developer can meet serious clients ? I mean clients willing to pay for quality work so I can make a living similar to a corporate jo…
As a very young programmer looking to make some money along his studies in the UK, I want to know where I can find clients, or even start a portfolio that's more than a few open source projects on GitHub.
I posted an offer to HN to build their app for £100. Monetary value is obviously very little, but it's a token gesture that technically gives you freelance experience.
It was great to build my portfolio up; I'd recommend it if possible. It's much easier to land gigs with a freelance portfolio.
Re: Becoming a contractor programmer in the UK
#99What are the benefits of incorporating an Ltd vs being a sole trader?
There are significant tax savings, and theoretically limited liability. The significant tax savings will change next tax year with changes in dividend taxes and NIC contributions. No-one is really sure of the actual impact at this point.
There's a calculator here: http://www.hl.co.uk/news/articles/budget-2015-changes-to-div...
Re: Becoming a contractor programmer in the UK
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Most permanent jobs have a 4 week notice period Really? In experienced level dev jobs? Most of the people I know are on two months notice. Three months, which is what I'm tied to, doesn't seem uncommon for senior devs/DBAs/similar.
It's also worth noting that (at least in the UK) such notice periods are not legally binding. You can only be forced to give a notice period up to your payroll pay frequency. So for example, if you get paid monthly then you cannot be sued for failing to give > 1 month's notice! ... But of course, most people will still honour their company's "3 month notice" (or whatever) period out of good faith, as it's generally a…
Are you sure about that? There is a statutory notice period of one or two weeks depending on how long your employment has been, but this appears to be trumped by contractual agreements:
https://www.gov.uk/handing-in-your-notice-resigning-leaving-...