Contractors have given their thoughts on the current contracting marketplace and expectations over the next 12 months in a recent survey from contractor news site and job board contractjobs.com. The survey looked at contractors plans and feelings about contracting, as well as providing insights into related issues.
ICS revealed some of the difficulties of a changing contractor workplace earlier this year, and there were similar themes within this latest survey. They reported that over 60% of the 1,000 contractors questioned said they wish to remain contracting for the foreseeable future, whilst only 5% said they are just contracting on a short term basis.
As usual, IT contractors were the largest sector with 29.6% of respondents, followed by financial workers (10.4%), engineering (9.6%) and construction (8.0%). Contractors within healthcare, manufacturing and media were amongst the other significant industries.
When asked on a sliding scale of 1 to 5 about their confidence in job opportunities improving over the next 12 months two fifths of respondents said they were fairly confident. However only a minority said they were very confident at less than 10% of respondents.
In regards to employment legislation, more than a third (38.4%) of contractors stated that they did not feel they were made aware of the legislation in the lead up to and since its implementation in October last year.
Whilst they responded that it has not yet massively impacted on most contractors, with 60% saying they felt no different since October, the survey revealed that there is currently a shortage of contracts for many freelancers, particularly because of the current economic climate.
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