I left the UK about 2 years ago, and I still get recruiters emailing me about all kinds of contract opportunities.
I get recruiters emailing me about all kinds of contract opportunities too. Many of them are probably just trying to harvest a CV. Many more want silly things like a senior Java engineer with a decade of enterprise experience for £350/day (which is a type of work I've never done and never enquired about or listed on any profile). You really can't read anything into what recruiters casually email you about or send to you on LinkedIn or list on sites like JobServe. The only thing that counts are the gigs that real developers are actually getting.
Sure, for an IR35 work you're better off with an umbrella company, but it's definitely not the case for outside IR35.
You're never better off using an umbrella. The client is. Umbrellas are just a vehicle to dump all the tax obligations that were supposed to fall on them onto you instead while pretending they're offering a much higher rate than the effective rate you're really getting paid. And with large clients they are mostly now used as a blanket policy even though they're supposed to assess each gig individually. This is a big change in the market in the last year or so because the IR35 rules changed to make the client/intermediaries responsible for determining status and liable if the determination is wrong.
I know more than one person who was independent for years but has given up and gone permanent again now because once you're getting hit with umbrella arrangements you usually get all the downsides of full employment anyway plus the extra costs that should be met by the employer and with none of the perks and protections of real employment. There are still a few umbrella gigs with rates high enough to make up for that but from the discussions I've been having it looks like the vast majority aren't now.
I get recruiters emailing me about all kinds of contract opportunities too. Many of them are probably just trying to harvest a CV. Many more want silly things like a senior Java engineer with a decade of enterprise experience for £350/day (which is a type of work I've never done and never enquired about or listed on any profile). You really can't read anything into what recruiters casually email you about or send to you on LinkedIn or list on sites like JobServe. The only thing that counts are the gigs that real developers are actually getting.
Sure, for an IR35 work you're better off with an umbrella company, but it's definitely not the case for outside IR35.
You're never better off using an umbrella. The client is. Umbrellas are just a vehicle to dump all the tax obligations that were supposed to fall on them onto you instead while pretending they're offering a much higher rate than the effective rate you're really getting paid. And with large clients they are mostly now used as a blanket policy even though they're supposed to assess each gig individually. This is a big change in the market in the last year or so because the IR35 rules changed to make the client/intermediaries responsible for determining status and liable if the determination is wrong.
I know more than one person who was independent for years but has given up and gone permanent again now because once you're getting hit with umbrella arrangements you usually get all the downsides of full employment anyway plus the extra costs that should be met by the employer and with none of the perks and protections of real employment. There are still a few umbrella gigs with rates high enough to make up for that but from the discussions I've been having it looks like the vast majority aren't now.