The UK IT Market
There's one major decision to make when deciding on your working life in IT… Permanent or Contract? Both have their various pros and cons, but the bottom line is, if you're looking to maximize your earning potential, potentially acting as your own boss and prepared move from Client site to Client site every 6 months, then contracting is your best bet.
If you decide on contracting as your way forward, your next step is finding a contract! Here, you will have to deal with agencies, understand your market value, ensure you are marketing yourself in the correct manner and become the master of telephone and face to face interviews.
The first foundation you should lay is to get your CV up to scratch, and ensure it's looking prim and proper for the contracts market. Our CV writing guide should hopefully give you the A-Z of what Recruitment Agencies and Clients are looking for and get you a step ahead of the rest of the competition!
Trying to understand your market value is probably the question we get asked the most. Obviously what your particular skill-set is goes a long way to determine what you're worth, but other factors include how much experience you have and how much of that is based in the UK. Agencies always prefer UK experience, so you may have to accept whatever rate is offered for your first project. In order to gain that vital UK experience, be prepared to travel to any client site in the UK. Once you have that experience, you will certainly have a stronger set of cards to play with!