2010 Annual Fee Rate Survey

Skillfair Consultancy Fee Rate Survey 2010

Skillfair’s 5^th Annual Fee Survey comes at a time when many independent consultants and freelancers are feeling under pressure from all sides. Clients are under pressure to reduce costs and retain permanent staff – plus to read the press it would seem there are thousands of newly redundant 40 and 50 something’s looking to set up as self-employed. In this difficult market it really pays to know what your peers are actually charging and how you compare – otherwise it can be very hard to resist requests from clients that devalue your services.

Fee Rates Holding Up Well

This year we were delighted to have the support of our partner organisations with the result that the survey was sent to well over 20,000 independent practitioners and freelancers and we received over 1500 responses from across the UK.

While it’s great to have such a strong response this does make year on year comparisons a little difficult as the responses have come from a wider range of businesses with different characteristics. In particular over 20% of this year’s responses came from people who get most of their business via agencies – well over double the proportion in that category last year.

The headline ‘average rate’ for this year’s survey is £523, down 8% from last year’s £565 – neatly balancing out the rather surprising 7.5% rise we saw in the 2009 survey!  Given the state of the market this is a pretty positive result and suggests that companies are still prepared to pay realistic rates for people with the right skills.

Fees by Specialism

The type of work you do is a key factor in determining rates – and these are often closely tied to supply and demand. So if you have a range of skills it can pay to explore areas of work that you might not normally consider to widen the range of possible clients, increase the value that you bring to them and make it easier to win good rates. The general order of rates against specialism is much the same as last year but there are some areas that have clearly been hit quite badly – including Financial consultants and areas related to the Retail industry such as Supply Chain/Logistics.

Change Management comes out on top with Coaching a close second, a pattern that’s well established now – presumably reflecting the efforts companies are making to re-organise and re-structure their way out of recession.

Public or Private – which is best?

As we’ve seen before there’s a clear variation between sectors – although the pressure on rates seems to be having less impact in the voluntary sector, possibly because rates are already low and clients understand they can’t push much harder and expect to get results..

It’s clear that a fair number of organisations are openly asking consultants to work for free or cut rates to help them weather the storm – over 60% of our respondents have been asked to work for free (or a rate they consider too low) over the last year. It seems they’re pretty discriminating though, their comments suggest that a client with a genuine need is likely to be helped – those who are just trying to squeeze out some extra margin will find themselves looking for help elsewhere!

The Regional View

Rates vary quite widely across the UK, as well as across sectors and specialisms and the great response we got to this year's survey means we can be more confident than before about these variations. The chart below shows numbers of responses by region - the big yellow area represents the 33% of our sample who work 'All over the UK'.

Interestingly, these mobile consultants also head the league table for fee rates, easily beating London and the South East which have clearly been hit harder than some other regions - although rates are still much better here than elsewhere in the UK.

Business IS Looking Up

The economic pundits disagree constantly about whether this is a ’double-dip’ recession and what medicine the economy needs but our respondents generally see positive about the future. A whopping 93% of our respondents expect revenue to stay the same or increase next year and a substantial portion are expecting strong growth in 2010.

We’ve certainly seen a pick up in projects coming through Skillfair in the last month and given that our consultants and business advisors are close to so many UK businesses this suggests that there is some serious growth just ahead.

Whether that turns out to be true or we have to wait until later in 2010 for the upturn proper though, there’s no doubt that the best opportunities will come to those who keep their skills up to date, concentrate on adding real value for their clients and put effort into marketing their services now.

About Skillfair

Promoting the exchange of expertise, Skillfair (www.skillfair.co.uk) offers a unique service for both consultants and clients. Through the on line meeting place clients can invite more than 1500 quality checked consultants to respond to their requests for expert help. Consultants can access these projects and use the service to find others offering similar or complimentary services to work with them on bids or ongoing projects.