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Comment by verttii | Hacker News Reader

I had no idea the IT consultant salaries were higher in Stockholm compared to London. What kind of rates would an IT consultant be expected to pull in Sweden?

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Assignments that are accessible by "anyone" at the consultant brokers are often listed around 750-950 SEK/hour, which means ~470 to ~600 GBP/day if you work 8 hours per day -- clients usually don't mind you working more though. Tax isn't that different last time I checked, but CoL is of course much higher in London.

you are forgetting however that the 750-950 SEK/h includes self-employment taxes (arbetsgivaravgifter) of ~30% + 30% income tax. That´s before all other taxes and fees.

This was essentially the whole point of my original post about consultants. But people dont get this. After all taxes are paid, you get something like 375-475sek/h if even that as this is the above average level of salary.

Compared to when I lived and worked in London, this is a joke. That´s before factoring in cost of living relative to income. You live a much better life in London than you do in Sthlm for instance so I am not sure where you got that last part from. Especially if you consider how massively fucked the Krona is right now

I'm quite aware of the taxes involved -- as I said, I've been working as a consultant for some time now. What you might be forgetting is that, with a company, you can plan your taxes better. Take out a minimal salary and put everything in an ISK and you don't have to pay any capital gains tax, for example.

You're also going to pay taxes being self-employed in the UK, and whether you prefer London over Stockholm is subjective; what you need to consider is the cost of real estate mainly vs statistical incomes, rather than anecdotes.

Regarding how "massively fucked" the Krona is, check this chart: https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=SEK&view=5Y

Contracting in London is as good as dead come April

Haven't been following this too closely, but can I ask why? Is this because of some new tax rules implemented by HMRC?

Yes. It's a short term money grab that will have profound effect on financial services industry, pharma, construction, etc. After killing contracting in the public sector the time has come to abolish the one-man consultancy in the private sector. It's still there, but no client (esp. big companies) wants to put the risk of audit on themselves so they largely have a blanket policy of 'no contractors' in place come April.

They're pretty much the same.

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