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Freelancer Monday morning, 9 October 2006

Alas, I missed the days when someone that new HTML could charge serious money just for making a frameset, nav for a few pages, and adding some text and background colours. The days when <font> ruled supreme (I started on HTML when the font tag was in decline). Regardless, when I started back in 2000, originally with FrontPage 98 making sites for friends (BigGreenMinibus.com is STILL online!) I never thought I would get into it as a full time occupation.

Clearly I did. I learnt how to get information out of an Access database using ASP on Microsoft IIS. I learnt Macromedia Flash 5. I did my first real work at an actuaries where I made, in Flash 5, a somewhat interactive bar graph that plotted information to do with pensions from a bunch of data in a text file. Most amazingly, or I think so, I landed a job at an advertising agency as a New Media Developer in May 2004. That’s in just four years of self learning. I’m not saying that to brag but because working in this field is one of the few places where the playing field is more or less level. Experience is still important but it’s not the whole story, you can get up to snuff on some of the core technologies in 1 to 2 years of self learning if you want to and compete!

What has this to do with the title of the post however? Well, for over 18 months I have been freelancing, and this info is just to set the background. I’m based in the UK but over 90% of my work comes from the States. The money for front end (XHTML/CSS/JavaScript) development is considerably better in the States than it is here. If you ask for more than £15ph here then you can’t get a gig. How do I know this? In the 18 months I’ve been freelancing and the year before that when I was in employment, I have signed up to a bunch of employment agencies. I have had around one call or email a month. Even after talking to them on the phone and having a good conversation, sending them work examples, I have never got a gig through an agency. What actually peeves me is not so much the fact that they don’t give me work. They don’t even send an email to say “sorry mr X, we are unable to offer you the gig this time but we have your details and will contact you if any potential work arises in the future”. Not one, and it’s plain rude. So as of this month I am no longer replying to any agencies, they’ve had their chance and they don’t even have common courtesy.

This begs the question, what am I doing that’s so wrong? I think the answer is price. In this country there is not a general awareness of web standards and the benefit of quality HTML. Most web and ‘creative’ agencies that make sites for a living write atrocious code and sites. Things are very different in the States. The going rate there seems to be about $50ph for quality front end development. Even with the terrible exchange rate at the time of writing (almost 1.9 USD per GBP) that’s still about £27ph. For what it’s worth all the work I have had has been through connections. I’d say 85% has just been through presenting myself to companies that need someone and the rest through recommendations or prior contacts.

Will this trend in the UK change? Maybe but I think slowly. Even where accessibility is required it’s not always provided In the States they have (at least more-so than here) embraced web standards and forwards compatibility as a competitive advantage, not an evil necessity. Of course this is not a scientific survey, it’s my general perception. There are probably places in the States writing bad code and companies in the UK writing great stuff. I think it is on the whole valid though.

 

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