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Pay rates for business and specialist consultants in the UK’s major industries have been squeezed from a year ago, with no immunity for IT staff. The credit crunch was partly to blame for consultants’ average daily rates in the first quarter falling from £662 in 2007 to £535 this year, the database of interim provider Skillfair reveals. The “doom and gloom” has had a two-fold impact, according to the group’s founder Gill Hunt: clients feel it justifies a rate cut and consultants don’t feel they can argue. “Negotiating fee rates is something that many consultants find difficult, the balance between the risk of not getting the work and the benefits of asking for and obtaining a higher rate can be quite fine. “Many of us take the easy route and just 'charge what we've always charged',” she said, pointing to daily pay in the private sector, which fell this year to £635. The thinner pay packets have hit IT management consultants, despite them being the seventh highest paid out of a league table of 22 different industry consultants. They currently take home an average of £577 a day, though some achieved up to £1000 a day, while IT infrastructure consultants made up to £1200 a day. However the best-paid IT consultants are currently earning up to £1500 a day, typically for offering clients IT solutions that include more than just technical expertise. “The higher paying IT specialisms tend to be the ones that require good communication skills so that’s something that [technical] people should work on,” Ms Hunt said yesterday. “[But] I think rates will be under pressure, particularly in areas where there’s a lot of competition, such as basic web design. People with hard to find skills should be able to maintain the rates better but may have to travel more to do it. “One of the strong features of the survey was that people who were willing to ‘go anywhere’ had higher average rates than people who stuck to one region, even London.” According to the site’s league table, Change Management experts are currently the highest paid consultants, each taking home an average of £806 a day. These experts, who typically oversee clients' restructuring, relocation and IT system implementation needs, were also the site’s highest paid consultants in 2007. “You need good people skills and experience and knowledge of management,” Ms Hunt said yesterday, when asked how IT types could pick up the specialism. “Routes in for IT people are generally through project management and you can get a management qualification such as a CMC - Certified Management Consultant - from the Institute of Business Consulting without necessarily doing an MBA. “Although the rates are attractive it can be a very stressful role, long hours and you can wind up as ‘piggy in the middle’ between management and staff”. Skillfair said that, almost regardless of their role, it sees “very few people” who return to permanent employment after working as a freelance or interim contractor. Alongside the credit crunch, the site noted that growing workloads in the voluntary and public sectors could also explain why, overall, consultants' daily rates have fallen since last year. May 2, 2008 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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