INDEPENDENT CONSULTANTS
Independent IT consultants are primarily individuals who contract themselves in their own right to work as consultants and IT professionals for businesses looking to use contract staff. They may also contract themselves to “staffing companies”. Often, these individual consultants will have formed their own companies, partnerships or “sole trader” business entities which effectively become their employers.As with staffing companies, client businesses are billed on a time worked basis, usually on an agreed hourly or daily rate. Individuals will bill on a “name” basis and those with companies or business entities, will bill through their companies.
Such consultants will have acquired skills from many different areas of the IT skill spectrum: from IT management to basic computer operation, and will be required to posses the necessary ability and experience to undertake the contracted tasks. For most individuals, professional qualifications as well as experience will be a prerequisite. As well as holding relevant degrees in computer and/or related business subjects, such consultants would also be required to hold post graduate qualifications in specialised IT areas, which are obtained from such organisations in The UK as the Association of Computer professionals (ACP).
Guest Workers are skilled IT workers recruited from countries where the labour costs are much cheaper (such as India, Pakistan and The Philippines) and are brought into work for client companies in the west (principally The USA, UK, France, Germany, Canada and Australia) on a contract basis to undertake a particular IT projects. These workers may be legally or illegally employed. Usually, on completion of projects, such workers would return to their own country.