As a contractor, it does seem like the market is hard work, but unlike others I've managed to stay in work. Brexit, the end of the year and new tax rules (IR35) coming forward have made this difficult.

However my last contract finished at the start of this month and the company I've worked has paid me the last month due to its own financial difficulties. I wasn't made aware that the company was only hiring a couple of contractors as it had lost a lot of its permanent staff and was just ticking over.

Looking at Jobserve and my email it appears I made about 55 job applications in around 2 weeks, and out of that got 

• face to face interview on Monday - this failed as it was out of my normal skillset and was a very optimistic reach into the contract stratosphere.
• phone interview on Tuesday - this would have been a good fit but in terms of interview prowess I only did about average
• phone interview on Friday morning - this was successful and I will be starting next week sometime
• face to face interview this Tuesday - I'll have to pass on this as need a bird in the hand instead of one in the bush

New Role - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

• The Good - I am openly going to use it to further Mr Minimouse computer skills and can do it largely remotely.
• The bad - it's only for about 8 weeks, but at least will get me past Christmas,
• The ugly part is that the rate (£350) is about £200/day below my normal one.

Still it will give me time to look for a long term opportunity early next year, or I might see if I can do a second remote role at the same time.
I think with the tightening of IR35 it might be more difficult to be a contractor, so i'm looking at being a proper company with employees offering our services or going permanent (shudder).