Contract work - Worth the effort?

[Blade1983 10]

Hi all,

 

Are there any IT contractors knocking about?

 

I'm in a permanent job at the moment, but getting more and more tempted to go contracting. I've just been offered a job that will pay me £350 a day, for 3 months. Is it worth the effort and the hassle of being "self-employed"?

 

I'm 20, still live at home and have no commitments.

 

GazB

 

do it, DO IT, seriously DO IT!!!

[WildStar HR 10]

Can you put anyone down as the company secretary? Would my mum be allowed?

 

Your mum would be perfect! All they really have to do is sign your annual return once a year. You're supposed to have minuted meetings and stuff but it doesn't really apply when you're the only shareholder of the company - what you say goes!

[JoeP 11]

Company Secretary - I couldn't advise you there as there are legal duties and responsibilities that are incumbent on the Company Secretary - it's essentially the legal face of teh company in terms of dealing with Inland Revenue, Companies House, etc. This is where an accountant comes in, as you may also have to run a PAYE scheme of some sort to pay yourself, unless you take your pay as Dividends - but again, accountant time!

 

I use JSA - they're based down in Watford. http://www.jsagroup.co.uk They're pretty good - they're 'conservative' in that they don't do anything really exciting in terms of tax efficiency, but they seem to be 'solid'. And they pay me on time.

[GazB 10]

Going back to this.. Can someone provide me with a breakdown of what I'd need to do before I become a contractor? Who/what I have to register with etc.

 

Many thanks in advance.

 

GazB

[BlankFrack 10]

I've been freelance for 2 and a half years and wish I'd started sooner,

 

The travelling can be a pain but I haven't had any fallow periods without work since I started (I had to force myself to take a 6 week holiday before my latest contract cos I was getting burned out)

 

I think there were new rules laid out in the recent pre-budget announcement that make umbrella companies a lot less attractive (can't recall the details - sorry!).

 

I have a limited company and use a £50 a year secretary service so I can forget about all the companies house nonsense every year.

 

My accountants aren't cheap but they do have a great range of FREE downloads on their site: SJD Accountancy that should tell you most of the stuff you need to know.

 

Good luck!!

[GazB 10]

So I need:

 

- A company that provide a secretary service (what do they do?)

- An accountant to handle all my taxes and national insurance (how much do they cost?)

 

And that's it?

[Bolero 10]

So I need:

 

- A company that provide a secretary service (what do they do?)

- An accountant to handle all my taxes and national insurance (how much do they cost?)

 

And that's it?

 

Considering it's taken you 4 months to even get to the stage of finding out how you go about doing it, I'd put it down to a flash in the pan idea and stick with your full time job.

 

Don't be eluded by the 'promise' of hard cash, someone of 20 is easily replaced with someone far better in the world of IT.

[D2J 10]

Wish you all the best if you go for this mate, travelling can be a pain but all the time you are working you won't be spending that money thats building up

 

I have never contracted but I was sent from Helpdesk to Helpdesk around the UK when I worked in IT Support

[BlankFrack 10]

So I need:

 

- A company that provide a secretary service (what do they do?)

- An accountant to handle all my taxes and national insurance (how much do they cost?)

 

And that's it?

 

The secretary service don't do very much to be honest - they file an annual return with companies house (telling them that you still exist basically) and they also need to sign some documents (e.g. bank account applications)

 

My accountant costs about £800 a month but they do pretty much everything for me (including my personal tax return) and answer all my questions within 24 hours. They also remind me when I have to send things to the inland revenue which helps to keep me out of prison. You can probably get a lot cheaper though if you shop around.

[Cyclone 10]

Look up the thread I posted recently about the same thing, some good advice in it.

 

One of the contractors i'm working with now uses an umbrella company called giantPowerHouse, worth having a look at.

[Cyclone 10]

The secretary service don't do very much to be honest - they file an annual return with companies house (telling them that you still exist basically) and they also need to sign some documents (e.g. bank account applications)

 

My accountant costs about £800 a month but they do pretty much everything for me (including my personal tax return) and answer all my questions within 24 hours. They also remind me when I have to send things to the inland revenue which helps to keep me out of prison. You can probably get a lot cheaper though if you shop around.

 

£800 a month. That's a fortune.

Most of the contractors i've spoken to pay about £500 a year for an accountant.

[GazB 10]

Considering it's taken you 4 months to even get to the stage of finding out how you go about doing it, I'd put it down to a flash in the pan idea and stick with your full time job.

 

Don't be eluded by the 'promise' of hard cash, someone of 20 is easily replaced with someone far better in the world of IT.

 

I'm 21 and I've got 5 years experience of building, configuring, troubleshooting and supporting servers and PC's ranging from NT to 2003 Server, exchange servers, domino servers, active drirectory, WSUS, kix scripts, symantec ghost, veritas .net backup, insight manager, various anti-virus enterprises, BrightStor ARCserve Backup, SMS 2003 blah blah blah, I could go on all day. Basically I have more experience than most of the IT professionals I know that have been doing this over 10 years. How many 21 year olds do you know that are in a Senior IT role?

 

The final bit of experience I wanted under my belt is RIS, voice/data patching and then building a batch of domain controllers - All of which I now have.

 

So, shh

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I'm also security cleared to SC level with the MOD. Considering how much of an issue security is becoming, there's always immediate jobs needing people with the clearance as it takes a while to be done and costs a fortune.