I'm a full-stack (mostly front-end) developer contractor in London on £300/d, have been there 13 months. I know this is massively below market rate but I was happy with it at the beginning (started on £280, raised to £300 after 3 month probation) as I had no contracting experience and had been out of full-time software development for a few years.
Contract renewal (client will definitely want to renew) is coming up at the end of the year. I'm now confident of being able to get another contract elsewhere at or closer to market rate (seems to be about £450-500/d) so I'm planning to ask for a significant increase to somewhere around here and start look elsewhere if client won't deliver. I'm at least twice as productive now compared to the first 6 months and the software is company-specific and takes quite a while to learn. I know they will pay more as the other dev (been there a few years also on contract) is on a lot more (as he's said £300 is 'far too low'). I would like to stay if they come through but will go if they don't
So my question relates to who to negotiate with. It seems to be the done thing to ask my agency to negotiate the day rate, has anyone negotiated their salary direct with the client? Part of me feels this would be better as a) I have more motivation to increase my day rate than the agency and b) I have a good relationship with the client. I've talked to my recruiter about this and he doesn't give the impression of being that bothered about increasing the rate. It seems odd to ask the recruiter to negotiate when I work with the person they're negotiating with every day.
Secondly, does anyone have experiences with large (>50%) increases in day rate when they've started below market rate? Most advice I've seen seems to be that renewal increases are small (say 10%) and you need to move contracts to get big ones.
Contract renewal (client will definitely want to renew) is coming up at the end of the year. I'm now confident of being able to get another contract elsewhere at or closer to market rate (seems to be about £450-500/d) so I'm planning to ask for a significant increase to somewhere around here and start look elsewhere if client won't deliver. I'm at least twice as productive now compared to the first 6 months and the software is company-specific and takes quite a while to learn. I know they will pay more as the other dev (been there a few years also on contract) is on a lot more (as he's said £300 is 'far too low'). I would like to stay if they come through but will go if they don't
So my question relates to who to negotiate with. It seems to be the done thing to ask my agency to negotiate the day rate, has anyone negotiated their salary direct with the client? Part of me feels this would be better as a) I have more motivation to increase my day rate than the agency and b) I have a good relationship with the client. I've talked to my recruiter about this and he doesn't give the impression of being that bothered about increasing the rate. It seems odd to ask the recruiter to negotiate when I work with the person they're negotiating with every day.
Secondly, does anyone have experiences with large (>50%) increases in day rate when they've started below market rate? Most advice I've seen seems to be that renewal increases are small (say 10%) and you need to move contracts to get big ones.
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