5 reasons why you should hire IT contractors over permanent employees in 2014

by Patrick Crompton, contract director at esynergy

With the general economy on the up (GDP expected to be 2.7% in 2014 according to the BCC) competition for the best IT employees will be sterner in 2014 than it was last year.

With a pleather of start-ups in and around Silicon Roundabout and large tech companies such as eBay, FaceBook and Google all choosing London to build big tech teams combined with a chronic shortage of good talent, never has it been so hard to hire good IT full time employees.

Unless you are working on the most innovative projects, bleeding edge technologies or paying significantly over market rates, be prepared for a rough ride hiring in 2014.

I believe you should consider hiring contractors over full time employees in 2014 and take advantage of the large and very skilled freelance market in the UK. My 5 reasons are as follows:

1) They are not as expensive as you think:

No need to pay National Insurance contributions, pensions, sick pay, bonuses or benefits. My calculations are contractors are about 20% more expensive if you take a £50k salary vs. £400 p/d daily rate and include recruitment fees. Please email me directly if you want a breakdown.

2) Timescales and ease of hiring:

You can hire easily and build teams within weeks rather than months if you were hiring permanent employees. If the business goes through a tough time or projects get cancelled you can downscale very easily without large redundancy costs or implications of re-homing people.

3) Contractors are lower maintenance:

I know it’s a sweeping generalisation but in my opinion contractors are more likely to do jobs not wanted by permanent candidates and worry less about career prospects.

4) Hiring the best talent.... easily:

I'm not saying that all contractors are amazing and permanent employees are not as good but there is a very strong pool of talented IT contractors out there. In general, they are relatively easy to hire compared to full time employees.

5) Longevity of service:

It's simply a myth that contractors don't stay long term and permanent employees do! We have had many contractors on our books at the same client site for 4/5+ years and in fact our average contractor works for 18 months. Permanent employees are much more likely to move if they are not 100% satisfied and there is little or no stigma to moving permanent jobs every couple of years!

If you are struggling to find the right permanent candidates or it is taking months and months then it is well worth speaking to your FD and working out how you can hire contractors to get these IT projects delivered.

Please get in touch if you would like any advice on hiring IT contractors and the implications around this via my email address: Patrick@esynergy-solutions.co.uk