Offer of Employment - dilemma

[Chelsea74]

I am in a bit of a dilemma. I have been offered three jobs - one permanent, one as a contractor in Business Intelligence for 4 months and one for six months. The permanent role offers a lot of job security but the other two are much more highly paid. What should i do? Obviously I value security of income. Help!

Negotiate on the permanent position using the offer of contract work so you have a slightly higher salary and go for that if security is most important.

If it's SIGNIFICANTLY more, take the contract work, pay yourself what you'd be paid in the permanent position and put the rest in savings in case it takes a while to get another position, but sounds like you'd be able to find a contracting gig pretty easily anyway?

If you want security more than money, take the permanent job.

If you like lots of money and aren't worried about being able to pick up another short term contract, take the higher paid 4 month one.

As someone who lives contract to contract and have done for 5 years now, even though I'm single with a big mortgage, I would say some contracts are worth taking less money for because they are for longer.

I don't ever bother with permanent roles because I also factor in holiday leave. For example, once, I didn't have any work for the whole of February. I basically just had to use that month as my holiday.

I love the control of being self employed.

Contract jobs are always paid better than permanent roles because there is an understanding that there might be gaps between ending on contract and finding the next one so in my opinion you're not comparing like for like. I always take permanent roles unless I don't need the cash/steady income at that point.

When comparing are you factoring in the pension contributions and any medical insurance and other benefits that you will get from the perm role?

What are you doing work wise right now / when did your last role finish? The perm salary is 52 weeks a year but if you regularly have 2-3 months between short term contracts then the annual pay of the short term contracts is lower. But you have more free time.

It depends if you want the security of a perm role that you do for 47 weeks a year rather than the insecurity of short term roles which give you chunks of free time once or twice a year.

I'd personally go for the permie but you've not said what the pay difference is. If it's say 10k per annum, then contract isn't really worth it in my view if you're not being paid holidays etc.
But it also depends on your personal circumstances, family, dependents, mortgage etc

depneds on the availability of contracts, your future plans and your financial plans.

Have you worked out the full tax liability for the contract roles, and factored in no paid leave, no pension contributions etc?
I contract and know I'll have to feel the fear every six months to two years, but it always works out.

duplicate

Without more details about your personal circumstances nobody will be able to offer you any helpful advice.