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I’m going to approach the subjects of the title in reverse order. So: Anybody fancy testing console/computer games for a fiver an hour? No? How about your teenage children? I always knew my offspring would make money some way. The only snag is that you’ve got to be fluent in French, German, Belgian, Italian or Mongolian or something. These are genuine job postings and have been posted pretty much every day for the last two weeks at least. It seems if you have W2K experience too, you can get another £1.50 per hour! If you’re a Spanish speaker, for example, go here Well, that’s the video games bit out of the way. You’ll have to read to the end of the article to get to the sex and lies bit. I received an email from a very nice guy who told me that I hadn’t really done any stats about support staff. Well, that’s not surprising really, is it? After all – who cares about them? They’re just as bad as testers – always complaining when things don’t work properly. Message to you guys – if you think you’re so clever – go and sort the problem out yourself! Huh! That’s told them! But seriously, Support has had a rough ride over the last year or so. With a lot of companies redirecting support calls to India and other places, rates in this country have not fared well. Minimum rates have gone as low as £4.50/hr at which point you may as well stack shelves in Sainsbury’s. Generally, though, helpdesk rates are around the £11/hr mark, and roll-out and support rates are at £25/hr. First line support floats at £12/hr, while second line support contractors can now look at an average of £18/hr, rising from £14/hr at the beginning of last quarter 2003. Third line support contractors have had a rate rise from £20 in September to £24 now. There was a slight blip to £30 in November but that might have been one rogue contract. With regards to demand, Second Line support seems to be the most popular, with over 150 contracts posted in February. In all cases demand seems to be rising, although 3rd line has overtaken 2nd line as the most popular, with around 130 contracts posted in Feb. First line, after a peak in Jan of over 130 postings has now dropped below 100. How does that compare with permanent jobs in the same arena? Demand-wise, the number of jobs posted is a lot more than that for contract posts. There were around 500 posts for second line support jobs in February, 470 for third line, and 350 for first line support. Is this the way things are going? As for permanent salaries, third line can still command about 34k a year which hasn’t changed much (except for a small blip around Christmas time last year where it went down to about 30k. Second line support has had a little bit of a downslide from £31k last year to £28k now. First line support salaries have hovered around the £20k mark for the last six months. I feel sorry for them, after all, they’re the ones that get it in the ear whenever anything goes wrong. Mind you, if they’re anything like the support staff I know, they make an absolute fortune in overtime and drive around in brand new BMWs. Location-wise, it looks like The North prefers 1st or 2nd line support with jobs posted regarding support both around the 40% range, while 3rd line is only 15%. Whereas in the South, 3rd line takes over 40% of the jobs posted, 2nd line just under 40% and 1st line 20%. Scotland and Wales don’t seem to like support people at all with single figure postings over the last few months for both contract and permanent work. Unsurprisingly, London had a lot more postings, although they peaked in January and are still only in the mid double-figures. First line and Second line support are closely tracking each other, with Second line getting more postings late last year, although they converged to around the 50 mark apiece in February. Third line also seems to be tracking the same path, albeit with fewer postings. Strangely, although there’s next to nowt in terms of support contracts in Birmingham, Liverpool or Manchester. Yorkshire on the other hand seems to be getting a lot of attention with postings almost hitting the hundred mark in the last two months. Rates also, after a bouncy few months, have wandered into the low-mid twenties – which is nice. So – that’s the summary of this week’s contractor statistics report. Now, you’ve all been very patient and read all the way to the end of the report to hear about the sex and lies bit. Well, I said I’d do things in reverse order, and so you get lies first. And the lie was that there’s nothing to do about sex in the article! However, contracts where the job description contains the word “liar” have been rife. It peaked in January this year, where “liar” was in the description of over 160 contract postings. In November last year is was at 119 and dipped sharply in December to 60. I think this was due to fear of Santa not calling. In the meantime, “lies” only made low double figures. On the rates side of things, “lies” could have got you up to £41/hr in January this year but it’s now down to £33/hr. Being a liar, on the other hand, has seen quite a growth since November last year when it was a paltry £16/hr to recent postings now of up to £34/hr. So that’s it for this week. Talking of liars, next week we’ll be looking at the Business Analyst/Project Manager type roles. Thank you to the people who’ve mailed me. I appreciate the compliments. If you’re looking for a contract (or a permie job!) our service will notify you within five minutes of a job being posted on our supported jobsites. If you have an always-on connection go to www.webalertz.com. If you don’t, go to www.servalertz.com. And if you to have a play with the statistics we offer, there’s a demo version at www.thestatz.com. Alan Potter. alan.potter@webalertz.com Web Alertz Instant notification of contracts to help you find a job within the IT industry. Developed for IT professionals by IT professionals. Mar 11, 2004 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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