Rote 8, your post says you are an analyst/designer. When you refer to 'OO' are you meaning 'Object Oriented' and if so are you a programmer? If you are, contracting will be right up your street. There is a huge demand for programmers and the rates are exceptional. If you're not then as ickle says, depending on your field, you could wait a while for the first call. IR35 seems to be a strange beast, many agencies have found ways to make it work for the consultant but this usually involves rather daunting wording of your contract. I would suggest looking at Jobserve.com and then cold calling some agencies to ask how they deal with IR35. Depending on where you're at in your flight training, contracting could work very well for you - it is a short term fix if you have a cash flow problem. Over greater periods I think it's swings and roundabouts though. You have to balance the financial security a permanent job gives you and your flight training against the costs of running your own company in very strange tax times... Depending on the market, you might only generate invoices for six months in the financial year! However, £30/hour on a 40 hour week for six months is approx £28,800. Taking off all of your costs and remembering that you're below the £28,000 limit for 40% inland revenue, you could still earn a pretty good years salary in this period (more if you're a programmer). As I say I don't know where you are in your training but if contracting fits in with your timescales I would give it serious consideration. Anything to get us to the front end of the a/c more quickly!