Rates vary hugely depending on the company, the industry, your experience, the agency and the phase of the moon. I've heard of people earning as little as £22/hr and as much as £100/hr. If you're prepared to work in the City I'd guess that an average rate is £60 - £65/hr. Outside there, it's more likely to be £45 - £50/hr.

All agencies are cowboys. Don't trust a word that any of them say. I tend to stick with the larger ones. Elan, ERS, Apex, for example.

Oh, one other thing that will effect your rate, is how much of a cut the agencies cut. Refuse to deal with anyone who won't tell you what their cut is. 20% is the absolute maximum that you should accept, 15% (or, even better, 12%) is about as good as it gets.

"Perl makes the fun jobs fun
and the boring jobs bearable" - me

Note also that the contract market is a bit depressed at the moment, which will affect first-timers more than seasoned contractors.

Andy, send me your e-mail address, I have some info which may interest you: jake@handsonit.co.uk

-- iakobski

Hmm... jobstats looks interesting, but it's worth pointing out that it has stats averaged over the UK. Rates in London will be quite a lot higher than that average.

--
<http://www.dave.org.uk>

"Perl makes the fun jobs fun
and the boring jobs bearable" - me

The rates on jobstats should be treated with some caution but what they are fantastic for is showing the trends: Take your rate for the last contract you started, find it on the graphs and follow that line to find the rate now. You now have a pretty good indication of whether you should be charging 10 pounds more than last time or 5 pounds less, or whatever.

You cannot expect the figures in themselves to have much validity - most contract adverts do not specify the rate and those that do are likely to do so because the rate is extra high. Also you do not know what other skills appeared on the advert - most contracts are for a bundle of skills.

My advice for first-timers is:

1. Make sure your CV looks like a contractor's: take out the personal details and put a list of skills on the front.
2. Do not look for agencies - find the job first (jobserve is still the best) then phone the agency and tell them you want that contract.
3. If you put your CV on a distribution service expect hundreds of phone calls - get a premium rate phone number that forwards to your phone, its free and you can turn it off when you find a job.
4. Have fun, contracting is better than permiedom any day!

   -- iakobski

Prost,
Moe