IT Contractor rates in Dublin

Michael_Dare

I've just started looking for contract work in Dublin (C++/C#), and I've been disappointed by the rates on offer. It seems that the average for a skilled developer is only €300 a day, which works out at about €69K a year - no better than the salary of a permanent employee with 6-7 years experience.

On top of that, the diversity of available contracts is tiny. It's all C#/ASP.NET - as if Dublin had only a single company who worked on only one type of project. Hardly any C++ work, hardly any desktop or Enterprise development.

Maybe I was expecting too much, but all this talk of a skills shortage in IT led me to believe that there would be a demand for experienced software developers. I know it's a bad time of year and all, but still...

Am I missing something, or is this really the reality on the ground?

Seriously thinking about crossing the water in a couple of months, as the diversity of IT contracts in the UK is huge, and the salaries much more impressive than in Dublin for contractors.

srsly78

I disagree. (c++ contractor) I recently (aug/sept) finished one contract and started another in Dublin, was spoiled for choice.

Have worked in London too, yes you can get more but Dublin is also competitive.

The real question is what will happen when they crucify us with tax increases in the near future.

Michael_Dare

srsly78 wrote: »

I disagree. (c++ contractor) I recently (aug/sept) finished one contract and started another in Dublin, was spoiled for choice.

Have worked in London too, yes you can get more but Dublin is also competitive.

The real question is what will happen when they crucify us with tax increases in the near future.

Good to hear you say that. Might be a case of a poorly constructed CV on my part. Do you find any particular agencies to be better than others for these roles?

srsly78

The first one to present me with a contract ready for signing with a decent rate is the best. From first contact to starting work took one week last time. Was unemployed for 6 weeks in total between contracts.

There is no best agency they are all *blank*, but you have to deal with them to get contracts.

COYW

Micheal,

Where are you looking for roles. i.e. on job sites or with agencies? I finished up at the start of this month and am holding off on taking anything new until I see what the budget has in store. However, I am getting offers from agencies regularly. €350-€400 seems to be the average in the C# world for a senior developer.

srsly78

COYW wrote: »

Micheal,

Where are you looking for roles. i.e. on job sites or with agencies? I finished up at the start of this month and am holding off on taking anything new until I see what the budget has in store. However, I am getting offers from agencies regularly. €350-€400 seems to be the average in the C# world for a senior developer.

A month on the bench will hit your pocket harder than the budget will, simple maths.

yop

COYW wrote: »

Micheal,

Where are you looking for roles. i.e. on job sites or with agencies? I finished up at the start of this month and am holding off on taking anything new until I see what the budget has in store. However, I am getting offers from agencies regularly. €350-€400 seems to be the average in the C# world for a senior developer.

Why are you waiting to see what the budget does? What decision will it affect?

Rates looking more like 350 a day for C# from what I have been looking at over the last 3 years.

DublinWriter

Contractor rates since 2002 have been gradually on the slide and it's gotten to the point that, as the OP said, rates generally are starting to match permanent salaries pro-rata.

You really have to go niche in order to earn better money contracting in the longer term. Remember that what ever you go out contracting at will be the skill you'll be selling for a long time - no employer/agency is going to pay to retrain or reskill you.

C++/C#/Java are very generic in their own right as skills go and will only depreciate in demand when the next shiny new thing comes along.

srsly78

DublinWriter wrote: »

Contractor rates since 2002 have been gradually on the slide and it's gotten to the point that, as the OP said, rates generally are starting to match permanent salaries pro-rata.

You really have to go niche in order to earn better money contracting in the longer term. Remember that what ever you go out contracting at will be the skill you'll be selling for a long time - no employer/agency is going to pay to retrain or reskill you.

C++/C#/Java are very generic in their own right as skills go and will only depreciate in demand when the next shiny new thing comes along.

So much rubbish in this post. C++ hasn't gone anywhere despite people predicting it's demise for ages. Rates have remained steady in recent years, they have not fallen.

The point about training is also hilariously wrong, noone gets training in IT - we all have to figure things out ourselves! Certs/courses are a load of bollox when it comes to serious development. For this reason contractors usually have a much broader range of experience than permies, simply because contractors will have worked in more jobs and more teams, thus being exposed to more technologies and different ways of doing things.

DublinWriter

srsly78 wrote: »

Rates have remained steady in recent years, they have not fallen.

Nope. At the higher end of the market take ERP for example. A PeopleSoft/SAP R3 bod would have been earning £700stg+ plus back in 2002. I've seen these rates slowly drop to about €400+ now. Same story with DBAs. Rates for programmers have dropped, but not as dramatically and certainly haven't been keeping track with inflation, so the a rate of €400 today is in real terms a lot less than €400 a day in 2006.

srsly78 wrote: »

The point about training is also hilariously wrong, noone gets training in IT - we all have to figure things out ourselves!

True enough for SMEs, but larger organisations still actively invest in training for their perm IT staff.

srsly78 wrote: »

Certs/courses are a load of bollox when it comes to serious development.

...and you say this when being interviewed by a prospective client?

srsly78

DublinWriter wrote: »

Nope. At the higher end of the market take ERP for example. A PeopleSoft/SAP R3 bod would have been earning £700stg+ plus back in 2002. I've seen these rates slowly drop to about €400+ now. Same story with DBAs. Rates for programmers have dropped, but not as dramatically and certainly haven't been keeping track with inflation, so the a rate of €400 today is in real terms a lot less than €400 a day in 2006.


True enough for SMEs, but larger organisations still actively invest in training for their perm IT staff.


...and you say this when being interviewed by a prospective client?

I don't say it, because I have no certs or qualifications specifically related to IT. They don't ask me about them because I have 15 years of experience. I am a contractor in a large MNA at the moment btw, and the permies all have to undergo mandatory training - they hate it and constantly complain about all the bull**** irrelevant courses they are forced to do.

The OP is talking about e300/day contracts, you are talking about specialist SAP stuff. Most contractors earn a lot more than permanent workers, and regularly turn down permanent offers (don't waste my time lol). This is without even considering the advantages of being independent, the advantages of being able to pick and choose from interesting work across the world etc.

How does a £700/day role turn into e400/day? They still pay Sterling in London last I checked. You are seeing your rates drop, but I am seeing mine rise. I do the "generic" work you mentioned btw, not sap stuff.

DublinWriter

srsly78 wrote: »

The OP is talking about e300/day contracts, you are talking about specialist SAP stuff.

Ok, well here's an example you might relate more to. Going rate for a VB6/C++ head back in 1998 to 2000 was on average £300IRP. The effective cost of living has almost doubled since then. The equivalent of earning £300IRP back in 1999 would be earning around €500 today, and that's being conservative.

As the OP rightly noticed, rates for contract work for C#/C++ in Dublin at the minute aren't exceeding much over €300 per day and the market has been like that for the past two years.

srsly78 wrote: »

How does a £700/day role turn into e400/day? They still pay Sterling in London last I checked. You are seeing your rates drop, but I am seeing mine rise. I do the "generic" work you mentioned btw, not sap stuff.

Sorry, I should have explained. Back in the day most of the higher-end ERP contract work in Ireland was always negotiated in pound sterling as only UK agencies were supplying the bods.

srsly78

Nevermind the cost of living, we pay so much more tax now. I don't class the 90s as recent btw, I started my career in 1998 so you must be really fscking old

Anyways, there is lots of work over e400/day. Some people need to look harder, or learn to market themselves better.

It seems you have been hit hard by the fall in demand for ERP stuff, have you considered branching out of your niche area? Probably not because if you have been earnign rates like that for over 10 years you should be retired (I would be posting from a tropical island if it was me!) .

The specialist stuff is true alright, I am getting calls all the time for a e650/day android contract in belgium wtfff. C++ not java, ndk stuff making set-top box for tv running android. Stuff like this is exceptional tho outside finance/erp.

DublinWriter

srsly78 wrote: »

It seems you have been hit hard by the fall in demand for ERP stuff, have you considered branching out of your niche area?

Not at all...ERP was never my niche, but I've two close friends still contracting in it.

srsly78 wrote: »

if you have been earnign rates like that for over 10 years you should be retired (I would be posting from a tropical island if it was me!) .

I don't know about a tropical island...La La Land sounds pretty attractive what with all those €400+ per day C# contracts!

srsly78

Oh, your £700 -e400 example is explained by the massive drop in sterling:eur rate over the last 10 years. So not a good example to use.

DublinWriter

The other big change I've noticed in the last three years is that companies are now looking for contractors to be at least graduates.

Usually, as you say, it wasn't the case as they'd assess someone on previous experience alone for short term contracts, sadly they seem to be using this as a 'weeding-out' process these days.

srsly78

Lots of time wasters around all right. Had two guys show up for c++ contract position, neither of them even knew about pointers... One guy even claimed to have college-level lecturing experience in it :rolleyes:

COYW

srsly78 wrote: »

Lots of time wasters around all right. Had two guys show up for c++ contract position, neither of them even knew about pointers... One guy even claimed to have college-level lecturing experience in it :rolleyes:

I can never understand why people do that i.e. put things down on their C.V. or application that they know nothing about. If you don't know something, say 'Sorry, I don't have experience in that'.

I used to do interviews in an old job for C# .Net 2.0 developers. One of my opening warm-up questions was, "Does C# support multiple inheritance?". I lost count of the amount of people, with plenty of .Net experience, who said "Yes", or "I think so".

ChRoMe

COYW wrote: »

I can never understand why people do that i.e. put things down on their C.V. or application that they know nothing about. If you don't know something, say 'Sorry, I don't have experience in that'.

I used to do interviews in an old job for C# .Net 2.0 developers. One of my opening warm-up questions was, "Does C# support multiple inheritance?". I lost count of the amount of people, with plenty of .Net experience, who said "Yes", or "I think so".

I share your frustration, it happens because there are places that you can bluff your way in. Disney, here in London don't do any sort of technical testing in their interviews. I've heard horror stories from some people I know in there.

DublinWriter

That can be carried out to a ridiculous level. I remember going for an interview for the job of I.T. Manager for a leading Irish book publisher about 20 years ago and being asked which number pins on an RS232 interface were TX and RX.

gagomes

COYW wrote: »

I used to do interviews in an old job for C# .Net 2.0 developers. One of my opening warm-up questions was, "Does C# support multiple inheritance?". I lost count of the amount of people, with plenty of .Net experience, who said "Yes", or "I think so".

Asking a candidate trivia of this sort tells you as much about them or their ability to think and reason in the job as their CV. I can count on one hand the amount of times I've had to use multiple inheritance and I don't know most of the conventions/naming used in the OOP/design patterns community lingo. In fact, I had to search it up to figure out what it meant.

Even if you were trying to hire a very specific type of professional that knows C# extremely well, this is still less important than an individual's ability to solve problems on the board or paper or to ask them to write a subset of a program using design person who knows how to solve problems well will not have difficulties picking up all the language/oop concepts in a language he/she isn't familiar with, as those aren't the hardest part of the problem, whereas, a person with poor problem solving is going to struggle to solve problems and will fail to assess the right solution to existing problems.

I've worked with some experienced programmers with average-to-poor problem solving. After they joined, they were given tasks of fixing issues from our tracker. Most of them fixed the issue at hand, leaving other avenues to trigger the bug or crash the app in a slightly different way. The experienced programmers with good problem solving would generally cut through the problem, re-engineer where required without breaking specification of leaving alternate ways to trigger the bug and wouldn't need to revisit it at a later stage.

Just my 2c