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I'm not the author, but I recently joined the BBC as a software engineer and haven't found all that many contractors at all, the ones I have are in regular non-senior positions.

It may be the case for 'talent' and management of TV projects (for example), but in the tech departments - your assertion, in my experience seems to be far from true.

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I've been here 14 years which is just about long enough to not be a newbie any more. I now plenty of contractors, most are useless. After 5 years one of the few good ones has taken a staff job.

We do seem to be getting better, the recent IR35 rules helped, but we still have contractors employing contractors. At a high level they're typically there to implement some bad idea and the fuck off so everyone can blame them afterwards.

One of your major contractors are the organisation that runs the TV and radio transmitters, Arqiva. An organisation absolutely bloated with middle management and contractors employing subcontractors.

The BBC would have been better off keeping transmission in-house.

Oh yes, we outsource many departments that used to be in house, from transmitters to cleaning, I was referring to contractors working alongside full time staff - usually because we don't pay staff enough to fill the roles with the right people.

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