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Comment by acallaghan | Hacker News Reader

I'm a ruby contractor working in London, charging £400 per day, but I know others that are charging £500. Having such a high day rate means that I can afford to work part time as to have enough time to work on side projects too. I earned just shy of £50k last year, not all the time was part time so this year will probably be less.

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Aren't rents in London for even a modest place in a nice part of the city north of £500 a week though? Seems rather touch and go if you're only doing that part time.

I live outside of London and commute in via a high-speed rail link - take me about an hour to get into the office. The rents are about half the price and the 'quality of life' is about the same, especially since friends in London are still quite close.

I used to live in London, was paying £1050 a month for a shitty one bedroom apartment miles away from the center - had no spare money and took just as long to commute!

My GF and I pay 1150 a month for a 3-bed house in Bow. Commute by scooter to Camden is about 12 minutes without traffic, 18 minutes with.

Rush hour public transport takes about an hour. Unless you have a serious podcast addiction or an enormous reading list, it's not worth it. Two wheels - motorized or not - are the way to go in London.

Any tips you can share on how you achieved that position?

Yeah I worked straight out of Uni for a few different companies, starting on £24k, but ramping up quite quickly to my last permanent job, which paid £40k (in Liverpool, not London). I then saved up a few months rent and just made the leap, setting up the business and accounts were easy, and earning roughly the same as I was before, but now just working half the time.

Edit: Oh for actually getting the contracts? I usually find them via ruby friends, or LRUG - the London Ruby User Group - a healthy supply of companies & contractors scour it to quench a never ending demand, it seems.

I was doing Perl. I assume it's pretty similar: go to jobserve.com, type in Ruby contractor, hit enter.

Then, £400 a day is pretty standard for London? I frequently get offers under that value, hence my belief that this kind of pay doesn't come through normal channels.

Edit: Wrote this before coffee. Thought we were talking hourly rates. Nevermind.

Depends what you do. If you work in the City you should reasonably expect £600 and up. No other sector in London pays as well.

Ruby is quite commoditised now. Take a look at, say, Scala on jobserve.com and you'll see rates are double Ruby. The only way you'll make big money as a Ruby consultant is by differentiating yourself somehow. Better go write a book. All that said, I would be very hesitant about accepting work below £400 a day. A good rule of thumb for consulting is you'll work 100 days a year. At that rate you are making about the same as a mid-level FT employee.

Also note the OP said he was a contractor. There is a fuzzy but real distinction between contractors and consultants. A contractor is typically treated like a FT employee, without the permanent job. This means working from the client's office, longer jobs (usually 6 months - 1 year), and no simultaneous engagements. Contractors typically get paid less than consultants, but there is more work going.

> Also note the OP said he was a contractor. There is a fuzzy but real distinction between contractors and consultants. A contractor is typically treated like a FT employee, without the permanent job.

Yeah bang on - I'm treated as a full-time employee, just no sick pay, national insurance (state pension), redundancy, paternity leave, etc. Sacrificing these benefits pays around 50% more, but you have to file your own tax.

The biggest problem I had was last year when I caught a bug and was out for a week, cost me £2000 - something you often take for granted in a permanent job.

Is it possible to find a contract for a dev that has no permit to work in UK? For instance, I'm skilled in Scala&Python and can easily visit UK as a tourist/businessman. What's the way to this market?(Scala User Group meetups, anything other)?

I'd be in violation of your visa/visa waiver. I have to pay UK corporation tax, something you won't be able to do with a National Insurance number (right to work in the UK) or working on a work visa or something.

I have American friends that have come and worked in the UK, but all for companies, none have setup themselves, so not sure if it's possible.

It shouldnt be a violation if I'll visit UK only to get new contracts and work on them remotely. I also have my own LLC in EU, so I can act on its behalf making taxation for customer easier.

The question is how to reach the market?

Work from home, and you'll be sorted, even if you're coming in from week to week. Tax laws target _where the work is done_. Then you're just coming to visit a client.

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