And thanks for the link!
I chose not to work in Edinburgh because of the terrible pay, I'm a PHP contractor and i work in London for £300-£350 a day for 3 months and then come back to Edinburgh after the contract is over. I go back when i start to run out of money again. You should look into doing this if its an option for you. Feel free to contact me if you want to talk more about it.
It's proof positive again of why I love HN. I read and felt for you with your post then in no time, you may have found a light at the end of the tunnel.
Great news :D I can't wait to hear that it's worked out for you!
If he's on £17k/pa and you're billing out £350 a day, then he only has to work 50 days per year to come out in the exact same place he's in now.
As long as he gets from you a list of those "first steps" on how to find the contracts. Even if he starts out billing only £50 per day (for fear of not finding work, in order to build a client list) he'd literally be no worse off than he is now (of course rent in London is much higher so ... I think he should at least bill £100/pd).
It sounds like he is a skilled developer with some niche knowledge in the auto market. Suffering perhaps from a lack of confidence (are my skills really worth that much?) and a bit of Fear, Uncertainty, & Doubt (If I quit this hell-job will I have to go on public assistance? will I be homeless?)
He's got to make the leap and get out. No question of that in my mind ... but he also needs help and encouragement to do it.
That's what I saw you offering (not the job) ... it's just the seed of that mighty Oak that I've seen planted - but - I've already assumed that there's a happy ending to all this.
What can I say? I'm a dreamer and an optimist. Probably why I spend so much time reading HackerNews :)
Teach a man to fish and you've fed him for life.
A second piece of advice is that if you are going to be a freelancer you should join the Professional Contractors Group (www.pcg.org.uk). They have an enormous amount of info on their pages, even more for members, and just by becoming a paid up member you get £70,000 of tax audit insurance.
How do you make the living arrangements work on that?
For a while I was going to London and doing training gigs for £400 a day but gave it up because it was either too expensive (staying in London itself) or too much of a headache (staying outside London and getting the train in).
You are also not valued by your boss. Probably because he doesn't really understand what you do.
Get a job with a company that has some conception of what developers do and rewards them accordingly.
If you like your boss as a person, but not a boss, then try to keep him as a friend. But working for him does not sound like it is doing you any good.
It's pretty much useless if you're actually living on anything approaching a normal salary. (It's doubtful that £320/month would pay most people's rent.)