Well at least in the UK if you are a contractor I would say it's typical to take 500-600 pounds a day. Plus if you are self employed you can expense a lot of things that you can't as a regular employee - petrol, part of mortgage/rent, computer for work etc etc etc. Sure, you have to do your own taxes and pay your own national insurance, but overall you can be taking a lot more money home than an employee, so it's no surprise to me that people like being contractors and wouldn't convert to employees even if they were offered a permanent position.

edit: "typical" for a mid-to-senior level programmer contractor. A "contractor" doing QC in games will not take anywhere near as much.

500-600 is a typical London rate. Outside London 300-400 is more likely.

That's still at least 2x the take-home on even the highest paying permanent roles outside of London.

Bear in mind that permie roles usually include pension, private healthcare, sick pay & holiday allowance. So the total comp from the permie role goes beyond the take home.

45 weeks * 5 days * £300 = £67,500

Outside London as a senior dev you might expect £45k full-time + pension + benefits.

So definitely not at least 2x.

45 weeks is kinda the rule of thumb of contractors, as you don't get paid hols or sick days.

That's true. But 45 weeks * 5 days * £400 = £90,000

500 * 200 days = 100k of income.

100k is definitely not twice what you get as a permie in London.

No, I said it's twice what you'd get outside of London.

Well, the 500 is consulting rate for inside London. The comparison doesn't stand then.

No, it's £300-400 per day outside London. Which at the top end is literally twice a permanent salary of £45k

As an average web dev, I've seen £350~£400 in London

I've long worked in banking, so the 500-600 I look for with London roles assumes trading systems knowledge. So I agree, outside banking rates will be lower. FYR I'm currently working a six month C++ Windows MFC gig in Gloucestershire at 365/day. I'll be heading back into London at the end of May though...

Got offered a Delphi contractor role last week for £800/day but required travelling and fixed deadline.