IT Contracting on Weekends/Evenings?

A question about : IT Contracting on Weekends/Evenings?

Hi all,

I'm 23 yrs old, I'm currently an IT Systems Administrator at a small Charity in Central London, I work 9-5/5 days a week.

I think I'd make a great Sales Advisor at somewhere like Currys/PC World but haven't had any luck trying to get in as probably my hours of only being available after 5pm on weekdays and weekends is too limited?

I was wondering if there are any opportunities for IT Contracting on weekends/evenings? Maybe things like roll outs or something similar, I want to boost my income whilst I'm young, lots of energy.

Any advice would be welcome, thanks!

Best answers:

• It might be possible, although I've never come across anyone specifically requiring it. Obviously you need to confirm that your current job allows you to take on other work.
  I would suggest that if you want to make more money (and why not?) that you would be better looking for a job in another sector that pays better in the first place and will offer the opportunity of paid overtime or call out. There was a time when I used to get as much of a third on top of my salary from on-call and call out payments, and as you say the time to do that is when you're young and can cope with the lack of sleep.
• Very rare to find this in IT contracting - it is more freelancing work. IT Contracting is normally project specific and therefore evenings and weekends is too drawn out.
• There are contracting roles for rollouts that involve overnight working.
  You would have to consider the following
  1 - When are you going to sleep?
  2 - As the time difference between one job finishing and the other starting is likely to be tight how flexible can you be geographically?
  3 - When are you going to sleep?
  4 - Does you current contract allow you to have another job in the same field?
  5 - When are you going to sleep?
• I work as an IT contractor, and if there are any contracts out there for evening/weekend work I am unaware of them... if you have the spare time in the evenings you are probably better off using that to improve on your existing skills. IT can pay very well, depending on which field you specialize in.
• In all my career I have only ever encountered 1 evening IT job, it was so cushy I was sad when it ended. Ј25 an hour to stick a cd-rom into a computer, run the antivirus software which took about an hour each PC, read a book whilst waiting, on completion of the test, put one of two stickers on the monitor and move onto the next pc.
• In our company, PAT testing is always done at evenings and weekends; I guess this applies elsewhere too, to minimise disruption.
• 40 days annual leave
  Is that your annual entitlement? Never heard of that many days before.
• To be honest, it's been pretty busy at work since the new year so I haven't had much time to find any work for Evenings/Weekends recently but I'm still very much up for it.
  IT Contracting advise for the hours I'm looking for are welcome, but if you can suggest some other things as well to earn money during my time in the evening/weekends that would be great, thanks.
  Do places like Currys/PC World take people that want to work hours evening/weekend by any chance? I reckon I'd make a good Sales Advisor in any technology store.
• I have both seen full time week/weekend work, known people whom did daily weekend work, and have personally done work for 3 days.
  You need to join an agency and be on good terms with them to get in, and for the best pay.
  Full time and weekend stuff, is around. normally it is a helpdesk/support in a call centre. Often rubbish rates and you learn nothing.
  Good paying weekend/evening short term work is often done for large company moves, like banks, or data centre moves. These can be 2 days of humping heavy equipment around for two 18 hours work days over the weekend and a 30 min lunch break. May last a few weekends. That 6 hour brake, most grab a bite and sleep in their cars.
  You get the odd small company, or growing startup move where you have to set up their office system. Had a week annual leave and I cabled, networked 8 PCs, printing, internet and migrated email for company over 3 days by myself.
  There unrealistic full time perm jobs out there like below that pay far too little, and expect far too much for the role and responsibility. Bet many of the applicants will be cooks who have a pc at home for 5 years, or feel that they can grow into the job with training
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