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It’s a well known thing that most developers hate having to document the design of their applications, project managers don’t know how to do it, business analysts are in a completely different world, and users haven’t got a chance of understanding what they’re going to be finally presented with. And yet there seems to be this belief that we can represent abstract development ideas in two dimensions on paper. Rubbish. You need virtual reality and a pair of those wavy glove things that Tom Cruise demonstrated so perfectly in “Minority Report”. Mind you, can you imagine them in real life? RSI would have nothing on the injury claims that these things would cause: “Aargh! You just gave me a black eye!” “Sorry, I was just trying to get rid of the bloody paper clip.” I’m tempted to present the rest of this report in those weird dotty 3-D pictures that were trendy a while ago where if you squinted carefully at them and stared hard, you would get a migraine. Instead, I’ll get sensible and look at the hard figures. Lets look at SSADM (interestingly, Lloyds Bank released their own version of this about 10 years ago and it was known as Sadism), Design Patterns, UML, Yourdon, Jackson and Booch. SSADM still has a number of contracts posted, though it’s in the low teens. However if you manage to get one, you’ll be looking at a rate of about fifty quid an hour. Design Patterns isn’t worth putting in your search text. While it’s a very useful skill and will probably help on your CV, no jobs have been posted with that requirement. UML is much more popular, although postings have dropped since March when over 250 contracts were posted. Last month there were 190 contracts. Average rates have stayed fairly regular since November at around the £38/hr mark. Yourdon occasionally gets a posting but monthly they’re in single figures and sometimes non-existent. The rates, when contracts are posted, are around £33/hr. As for Booch, there were 7 requirements posted in March and that’s been it for the last six months. Was it his birthday or something? Jackson, on the other hand, doesn’t even get a look-in. Of course there’s no point in designing if there’s no planning. So what are contract requirements like for project planning skills? Not that good, I’m afraid. Project planning generally doesn’t have that many postings with a peak of 70 in March. In April it was down to 45. However, on the good side, rates have been steadily increasing since February and are now at £40/hour. Strangely, Microsoft Project or MS Project requirements have had no postings at all. There’s no harm in putting “gantt” (although I would also recommend putting “gannt” due to dyslexic agents) in your search string, although you’re not going to get many hits and the rate is around £30/hr now). As for project management per se it’s still a popular contract. There were over 900 contract postings in March, although it dipped a little in April to just over 800. Rates-wise, the figure has hovered around the £38/hr mark, although it’s hopped up to £40/hr this month. The growth in requirement for contract project managers has been quite astonishing. In September and October last year it was in low double figures and then exploded quite dramatically in November to the point where it nearly multiplied ten-fold. Then between December and January, demand more than doubled! So that’s a 20x increase in demand in six months. That can’t be bad. It’s a shame that rates haven’t reflected the change in supply and demand. When I was taught economics, as demand increased, or supply decreased, the cost of the item went up. I guess we’ve just got too many available project managers… Anyway, that’s it for this week. Once again, I’m always open to requests for contract areas to analyse. You can contact me at alan.potter@webalertz.com. Just make sure you give me plenty of keywords. Alan www.webalertz.com May 20, 2004 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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