Serious question, hear me out.
I'm deeply cynical and dismissive of agencies. In the main, they do nothing to justify their fee. It's rare to encounter one who knows anything about IR35 and proper working arrangements. Their agents are little more than salesman spammers who hit up LinkedIn for skill keywords in the hope of doing a very basic middleman introduction and email of a 'job description'. An agency is considered 'good' if their back-end admin isn't completely incompetent, and even then it normally takes a few weeks for them to get up and running on a new contract. Asking them for contract modifications throws them for a loop and everything is so delayed it often becomes a choice between starting the job or letting it go because they're dicking around too much trying to work out where to paste in some new clauses from.
Or you could be a permie. Urgh. Eating tulip in a tulipty office with a 3-month notice designed to make it difficult to leave and getting paid below market value etc. etc.
Worse still, you could be a permie working for a consultancy who farms *you* out at contractor rates whilst your delightful employer takes a tidy profit from the difference. Of course they offer you a free laptop and phone and a fscking scooter in the wacky multi-coloured ultra-hip office with free beer in the fridge. It's peanuts compared to what they're making off you.
So the question is... what's the better solution? You're a limited company with a single director, engaging mostly through agencies on jobs for a fixed period. You've got a right to substitute but that's not the same as being a viable employer. And you're looking for quality people who, if they're any good, should be contracting themselves, and they don't want to be your employee do they?
I'm not describing an umbrella company either. That to me is just a construct that's taking a cut of your money to ease the burden of tax and NI for those that don't want to do it themselves. It's easy but it's not exactly the most tax-efficient way. You're still basically operating solo, still dealing through an agency.
I can't help but feel there's some giant niche here for a better way. Contractors coordinating to work together. Cutting out the agencies. Supplying the demand in a more intelligent manner. Something that doesn't ultimately end up just being another agency.
Feel free to tear all of that apart, this is just something that keeps occurring to me every time I shift contracts and think 'sheesh, there must be something better than this'.
I'm deeply cynical and dismissive of agencies. In the main, they do nothing to justify their fee. It's rare to encounter one who knows anything about IR35 and proper working arrangements. Their agents are little more than salesman spammers who hit up LinkedIn for skill keywords in the hope of doing a very basic middleman introduction and email of a 'job description'. An agency is considered 'good' if their back-end admin isn't completely incompetent, and even then it normally takes a few weeks for them to get up and running on a new contract. Asking them for contract modifications throws them for a loop and everything is so delayed it often becomes a choice between starting the job or letting it go because they're dicking around too much trying to work out where to paste in some new clauses from.
Or you could be a permie. Urgh. Eating tulip in a tulipty office with a 3-month notice designed to make it difficult to leave and getting paid below market value etc. etc.
Worse still, you could be a permie working for a consultancy who farms *you* out at contractor rates whilst your delightful employer takes a tidy profit from the difference. Of course they offer you a free laptop and phone and a fscking scooter in the wacky multi-coloured ultra-hip office with free beer in the fridge. It's peanuts compared to what they're making off you.
So the question is... what's the better solution? You're a limited company with a single director, engaging mostly through agencies on jobs for a fixed period. You've got a right to substitute but that's not the same as being a viable employer. And you're looking for quality people who, if they're any good, should be contracting themselves, and they don't want to be your employee do they?
I'm not describing an umbrella company either. That to me is just a construct that's taking a cut of your money to ease the burden of tax and NI for those that don't want to do it themselves. It's easy but it's not exactly the most tax-efficient way. You're still basically operating solo, still dealing through an agency.
I can't help but feel there's some giant niche here for a better way. Contractors coordinating to work together. Cutting out the agencies. Supplying the demand in a more intelligent manner. Something that doesn't ultimately end up just being another agency.
Feel free to tear all of that apart, this is just something that keeps occurring to me every time I shift contracts and think 'sheesh, there must be something better than this'.
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