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Comment by runako | Hacker News Reader

Curious: why are rates in the UK frequently quoted as day rates (vs. hourly or monthly)?

The custom in the US seems to be hourly, but in the UK, it seems day rates are the norm. Curious as to whether this is just happenstance, or whether something else is involved.

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This is for fellow contractors where we take a day rate rather than your usual permanent yearly salary.

I get that it's for contractors (the title of the post says so). It's just that in the US, contract roles are posted as e.g. $YYY/hr and not $XXX/day.

I'm just curious as to whether there is any concrete reason for this. Based on the comments here, it sounds like it's not very friendly to the contractors.

lower rates tend to be hourly, higher ones tend to be daily.

though that's not a hard and fast rule.

and don't forget, day rates are often based on 7.5 hours per day and pro-rata up or down, so you actually get paid hourly!

As a contractor for the last 6 years in London, I have never seen a day rate prorated. The hours of various companies change which does end up with the same result in a way but the actual amount should be defined by you.

I've never seen this either.

I do sometimes charge half days or 3/4th days if I have to leave work a few hours early.

Do you ever do the reverse and charge e.g. 1.5X if you have to stay late?

Is there any advantage to this system versus hourly billing?

I never had a contracting job that requires me to stay late, just 8 hours a day. I would have billed 1/4th more day if I had to stay 2 more hours.

So if you do a long week (say -- 60 hours in 5 days toward a deadline), do you earn the same as in a shorter week (e.g. 40 hours)?

Or do you get to bill 1.X your normal day rate for longer days?

I'm curious as to whether there are any advantages to using day rates versus hourly.

A daily rate is usually for a "professional day" and not prorated. If they're paying £600 and up, you're going to be going 60+ hour weeks.

This is simply not true and just something permies make up.

Yes to be honest I've been treated far better and been able to make much bigger changes within code and organisations as a contractor than I ever could as a permanent person. The money is nice but it's just a bonus to being able to build great things.

Same here, but my problem is that you don't have the opportunity to learn things on contract jobs.

Company doesn't invest in your ability to learn and adapt, it only invests in your ability to solve that specific problem. In my experience.

You're half right. The rate is for a professional day, and even as a contractor in banking the last time I did a 60+ week was a one-off working on overnight deployments.

So are you saying that if you did 70 hours over 6 days, you get paid the same as if you worked 40 hours over 5 days?

If I worked 70 hours over 6 days, I'd get paid for 6 days. However, if I worked 70 hours over 6 days for more than a week or two, I'd try and renegotiate my rate.

Good catch; I conflated the # of days. Thanks for clarifying!

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