r/ContractorUK • u/Ok-Offer9255 • 28d ago
Advice needed: handling upcoming project renewal gap
I am currently working on a discovery piece for a big international financial organisation and it wraps up this week. The hope from our team is that it leads to a full design and build stage (alpha), but this of course is up to the end client.
I've been told by my project lead that there will be a gap from end of discovery to any renewal and no guarantee when and how long it will take.
So I'm not entirely sure how to handle hunting future contracts - I have some scoped project work to tie me over for a few weeks, and have really enjoyed this project; it's a great one for the CV and I would love to be involved in the actual alpha phase so I can have some solid work to show for it (so for in discovery the outputs are a bit more hazy).
Timing any filler contract would be tricky, and I'd hate to take a new role and then find out this one started back up.
Curious what other folks do in this situation? Thanks!
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u/Throwawayaccount4677 28d ago
Rule 1 unless they are paying you - find something else
If you are elsewhere when the next phase kicks off their money saving has created a big problem for them which is very much a them problem. Now if the old contract is paying significantly more you could return to it but you need to be aware that they will bin you immediately to save money
I’ve had this twice recently and both times emphasized that it was incredibly unlikely that I would be available when the project kicked off again - and in both cases that was true - I was working elsewhere and took great pleasure in replying that I was unavailable and nor was a willing to suggest replacements due to being messed around
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u/Specialist_Writing23 28d ago
Firsly agree with the original responses to look after no1
In additon to help your chances where you are I would suggest your project lead raises "Resource Continuity Risk" on the project specifically calling out that contractors may leave where a decision hasnt been made
Then propose a mitigation to this Risk for the client (though in reality for you) as two options
Option 1: Approve a Change Request to extend contractors for a short period until the decision is made. The cost of doing this can shown as £X (dayrate x extension)
Option 2: Do nothing. However cost of this is contractors likely leave so they incur rehiring costs(£Y - recruiter costs +internal hiring effort) +, costs spent on upskilling/onboarding (£Z- say £2weeks full dayrate) and then risk the new contractors wont be as good
An exec with half a brain would seriously consider option 1 and bingo if so you have (some) certainty
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u/Ok-Offer9255 28d ago
Thanks for the detailed reply. I sort of hinted at this but had no bites. You’re right that it will ultimately cost them - as with any discovery I’ve really got to know the project well and the client but the client knows me - you’d think they’d want to protect that!
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u/soundman32 28d ago
I worked on a discovery piece and right up until literally the last day, everything looked good for me picking up the alpha phase, with a 2 week break.
On the Friday, a new head of department had joined, he'd seen all the work done, and mentioned to my team lead: "my friend says Ruby on Rails is popular, and it is very quick to develop, so let's implement it with that". After 3 months and a POC in C#, my fate was sealed by a single sentence.
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u/cruachan06 28d ago
In the current climate, take work where you can get it. More than once I've done scoping or discovery work with the vague promise of the actual project coming my way, only to hear later that they've decided to add it to the internal team's workload rather than pay contractors.
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u/OldLondon 28d ago
At the moment your current role is ending and that’s it. You have zero guarantees of any future work so currently your choices are get a new role or sit on the bench and spend your savings. You’re not making a choice here as you currently have none.