Callum Evans

⚖️ IR35 in 2025: Smart Strategies for Using Contract IT Talent Contractors remain essential for scaling fast and accessing niche expertise—but IR35 continues to confuse and concern many businesses. Our advice: Define Status Clearly - Use robust, documented IR35 assessments. Call in Experts - Don't risk misclassification; specialist advice pays off. Specify Deliverables - Crystal-clear contracts strengthen your IR35 position. Bottom line: Don't let IR35 scare you off. With the right processes in place, you can tap into exceptional contract talent without compliance headaches.

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I noticed something interesting about tradespeople in the UK. They’re running their entire business from their phone… …but the software they use feels like it was built for a 9-5 office job. I spent the last few days reading 100+ reviews of tools like Tradify, ServiceM8, Fergus, Workever Same complaints over and over: – Too expensive – Too complicated – Too slow One review stuck with me: “I just want to send a quote quickly. Why does this take so long?” That sentence basically became a product idea. So I started building something simple: A mobile-first app that lets tradespeople send a professional quote in approximately 90 seconds. No CRM. No scheduling. No bloat. Just quotes → invoices → paid. If you’ve ever worked with tradespeople (or are one), I’d genuinely love your thoughts. #indiehacker #tradespeople

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🚀 Software Engineering Leaders 🚀 If you’ve been planning to invest in your development this year but delivery pressure and busy calendars keep pushing it down the list — this could be a good moment to jump in. 🌊 The next Wave of Mutual Mentoring @ WRK is kicking off — with pairings happening this week 🌊 It’s free, thoughtfully designed, and built to fit around real leadership workloads. So… what is mutual mentoring? You’re paired with another software engineering leader for a small number of focused, confidential conversations. No hierarchy. No performances. Just two peers learning with — and from — each other. Why it works so well for leaders: ✅ A safe space to talk through challenges you can’t always unpack internally ✅ Practical perspective from someone facing similar leadership realities ✅ One short session a week for 4 weeks — manageable, focused, and high‑impact Many people join thinking “This will be nice” — and leave saying “I didn’t realise how much I needed this.” You could be matched with leaders from organisations doing great work across the industry, including CGI, evoke, Yorkshire Building Society, Parallax, Skipton Building Society, LHV, StarCompliance, Certinia — and more 👏 “I didn’t realise how much I needed mutual mentoring until I started. Gaining perspective — and a great friend — has been invaluable.” — Kenny Thompson, Head of Digital Development, White Rose Education If you’re navigating growth, complexity, or just want protected space to think more clearly about how you lead, this is a very human and very effective way to do it. 📩 Reach out to myself or James Westwood if you’d like to be considered 📧 Or email James@WRKdigital.co.uk for your profile card

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Seeing far fewer Frontend roles right now Spoke to an engineer yesterday who thinks this is partly due to how easy it is to prompt AI to generate HTML, CSS, and JavaScript using frameworks like React, Vue, or Angular Whats everyones thoughts? Surely this can't be the only reason for the decline in demand

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Yesterday, whilst Ian and I were in Napier at the #CBAFF conference, a momentous moment occurred, silently and without fuss or fanfare. Version 1 of LINQ was turned off! Over the past 2 years, our Product Owner and Lead Developer, Antony Williams has re-built LINQ from the ground up and has had both versions running in parallel as we worked to migrate all of our customer to the new, vastly improved version. This project started when, in a cafe, 2 weeks after we first met, Ant said "no" to 'simply' upgrading LINQ. He had taken a look and the effort required to unpick the platform and upgrade the libraries was likely to end in disaster. He had spent those 2 weeks starting again. Inside I was freaking out. At the same time, I really didn't have a choice. I am not a developer so had no control over this decision - I just had to go with it. So off Ant went! From about month 3 he had delivered a working version which formed our test bed and at about month 6, I started to almost exclusively use the new version and started introducing it to customers and partners. We officially launched Version 2, almost 12 months to the day from Ant's first look at the Version 1 code. It has taken a while longer than we had hoped to migrate everyone across - mainly as a result of having to get the new version through government security assessments, which takes an absolute age. The persistence paid off, and the result was Ant's ability to click the stop button in our old AWS infrastructure, yesterday. The end result is a significant improvement on the original with most of the capabilities I have been dreaming about, implemented and available to all of our customers. The roadmap is clear, the platform is secure and scalable, and the future looks bright. You can get started for free by heading to https://lnkd.in/gxQ98qxC, signing up, following our walkthrough and tutorials and then playing with our AI model builder. We'd love to hear your feedback! LINQ Ltd. #ThinkLikeLINQ #DigitalTwinOfTheOrganisation #MakingChangSuccessful

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I’ve recently published a Salary Survey focused on roles across OOSD. Seven roles benchmarked: ✈ Business Analyst ✈ Product Manager ✈ Technical Lead ✈ Project Manager ✈ Solutions Architect ✈ Programme Manager ✈ Director   Scaling or adjusting teams for OOSD capability...   If you’re navigating complex Modular, Offer & Order journeys, Buy/Build strategies, Planning etc, the Compensation Report will help talent & retention ideas. 1. Save this (three dots, top right). 2. Share it with a friend by ♻️ reposting. 3. Connect with me. 4. Comment OOSD for the Salary Survey. #AirlineTechnology #OOSD #NDC #IATA #OfferandOrder #ModernAirlineRetail #AirlineDistribution #PSS #GDS

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Agentic coding — does anyone else find it’s significantly more effort to explain, with sufficient detail, precisely what you’re looking to build, than it is to just write the code yourself? The sheer amount of detail you need to articulate to see reasonable results is just ridiculous! Personally, I’d much rather write the code myself, even if it’s a language I’m unfamiliar with. It’s like winning the lottery — the lack of personal satisfaction from not having earned it counts for far more than you’d initially think.

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The Post Office just got hit with a £104.4m IR35 tax bill. The biggest ever. What caught my attention: this liability was linked to the contractor workforce working on Horizon system remediation and technology change programmes. As engineers, we see this dynamic from the inside every day. You join a team — maybe through an agency, a consultancy, or your own PSC — and within weeks you're in the standups, on the Slack channels, using internal tooling, and working to the same sprint cadence as permanent staff. The contract might say "managed service" or "deliverable-based," but the reality on the ground looks nothing like that. That gap between the paperwork and the actual working practices is exactly where this £104m liability came from. It's a good reminder — whether you're a contractor yourself or an engineer working alongside contractors — that how a role actually operates matters far more than what the contract says. And when no one reviews those arrangements for years, the risk just quietly compounds. Worth a read if you work in or around the contractor/consultancy space in tech👇

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💻 JavaScript hiring – a bit of insight into some industry trends 💻 LinkedIn is feeling a lot busier with JavaScript roles at the moment which is great to see.   Echoing Ben Clarfelt's point in his previous post the LinkedIn apply system is not the best. A word of advice is to always follow up with the hiring or talent manager via a message expressing your interest. It really helps you to stand out from the crowd. Yesterday I took a look at 50 JavaScript roles to see if anything stood out and there’s several things worth highlighting: 📊 78% of JavaScript roles were working with TypeScript 💻 There were only two junior roles. We’re seeing an emphasis on mid and senior roles 🤖 A significant number of roles (46%) mentioning a want for experience with AI, or a willingness to integrate it into your workflow On the seniority point, are we seeing a shift away from junior roles because companies can now automate a lot of tasks with AI? Total breakdown of seniority was: ⭐10% Lead and Principal roles ⭐56% Senior roles ⭐30% Mid roles ⭐4% Junior roles This was only a sample of the latest 50 roles posted in the UK so not a thorough breakdown of the market. It’s interesting to see some pretty clear trends though.

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It's that time again! I've got a talk up this year that started out as a discussion in a DigiLocal CIO session about the best ways of talking to young people about testing the code you've written and led to me writing a basic testing framework in Scratch and seeing how feasible TDD was in that environment. The talk is called "Testing from Scratch" and if that sounds in any way interesting I'd really appreciate any votes to get it into the programme, but there are loads of great talks on offer (in particular, I'm curious to see what both Lorraine Pearce and Michael Luke are talking about) so do have a scroll and see all the wonderful things on offer

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How often do software engineers in Scotland get the chance to help build a new product category on a global scale? I’m recruiting with a company that genuinely feels like one of those opportunities. You'd be building an AI native product that's changing how an entire industry works. This sounds like hype, but it's the truth. And they're now scaling fast. In addition to that, the engineering team are leaning into AI in how they build too. They are using tools to move faster, iterate harder and raise the level of what they can ship. If you joined, you'd be part of a company that's growing quickly, taking market share internationally, and building the kind of momentum that can put a team, and a city, firmly on the map. I’ve worked in Scottish tech long enough to know these stories do not come along all that often. I believe that this is one of them. If you’re a builder, and you want to be close to that sort of journey, I’d be keen to speak. Drop me a DM or email sean.gilger@be-it.co.uk

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Replacing a Principal Java Engineer is not always a recruitment problem. Sometimes, it is a delivery risk. A London payments firm came to us after their lead Java engineer resigned mid-project. They had tried direct hiring. They had used their network. But they were not finding the right person. The reason? They did not just need a Java developer. They needed someone who could step into a live platform, strengthen architecture, support senior engineers, and protect delivery under pressure. That changes the whole search. Here is how we thought about the brief. #Java #JavaEngineering #TechHiring #PaymentsTech #SoftwareEngineering #Xist4

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"Working backwards - Part Two" Looking at the fallout from the Claude Code leak this week, it’s never been more vital. The newsfeed is on fire with the news of the 512,000 lines of leaked TypeScript, but we have to look past the code and look at the governance gap. Russ Pearlman dropped a brilliant masterclass yesterday, breaking down the massive security and legal implications of this leak: specifically highlighting a feature called "Undercover Mode" (link to his post in the comments). If we work backwards from the enterprise CISO, the General Counsel, and the CPAB Auditor, there are two revelations in that codebase that should keep every board awake at night: 1️⃣ KAIROS (The Background Daemon): Agents are no longer just reacting to chat prompts. They have "wake-ups" that execute proactive, headless background tasks across sessions. 2️⃣ Undercover Mode: A feature designed to auto-strip AI attribution from public code commits to make them look fully human-written (a massive IP and trust nightmare, as Russ rightly points out). If an agent is running autonomously in the background, and its outputs are designed to intentionally hide its own tracks... how does an Audit Committee claim "human-led oversight"? How do Canadian financial institutions pass an OSFI E-23 inspection? You cannot rely on "AI supervising AI" (like the leaked ADVISOR meta-layer) to catch this. You need a deterministic Commitment Boundary: a runtime enforcement layer that intercepts the action and generates a non-repudiable, auditor-ready evidence trail before the action even executes. Continually humbled and amazed by the brilliant architects and leaders I’ve been debating this with recently. The era of trusting black-box agents is over. It’s time to bring verifiability back to the enterprise stack. #AI #AgenticAI #Cybersecurity #OSFI #CPAB #EnterpriseArchitecture

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It's not just meetings that destroy the productivity of your developers, but they don't help. Learn some ways to improve your #DeveloperExperience in this blog post.

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Been working with a few developers recently who are using Blazor on the front end, still fairly unspoken about, but definitely one of those frameworks that’s starting to pop up more and more. It’s made me notice a wider trend in newer tech that developers are starting to move towards: .NET MAUI: loads of .NET devs dipping into cross‑platform UI. WebAssembly: not mainstream yet, but definitely growing, especially with .NET and Rust folks. Bun & Deno: early adopters moving away from Node for speed and cleaner tooling. Svelte & SolidJS: the “lighter than React” frameworks gaining real traction. There’s a clear shift towards devs becoming more rounded — picking up new tools and frameworks as the stack evolves. Feels like we’re in one of those phases where the stack is updating again, Developers are quietly upskilling into the next wave. Im Curious what others are seeing, what’s the next “unspoken but growing” tech you’re spotting.

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Inside or Outside IR35? From a recruitment standpoint, the distinction has major implications.  Many IT specialists value the autonomy and tax efficiency of being outside IR35. For companies, attracting top talent often means being able to offer compliant “outside IR35” contracts. But the risks are significant: misclassification can lead to costly penalties and reputational damage. 👉 What are the consequences for IT companies? Higher costs: Many companies now face increased taxes and National Insurance contributions when working with contractors. A shift in hiring strategies: There’s growing popularity of permanent contracts or well-defined B2B agreements, to stay compliant. Recruitment risk: Top IT specialists often prefer flexible, contract-based work. IR35 limits these options, making it harder to attract and retain the best talent. How has your company dealt with IR35? Have you managed to build an effective model for working with IT contractors under the new regulations? #IR35 #ITRecruitment #UKTech #SoftwareHouse #ITContractors #TechRecruitment

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CONTRACTS: IR35 and the importance of good contracts. Contracts are one of the things that can significantly impact a business's ability to defend its IR35 status determinations. If yours are unclear, inconsistent, or contain employment-style clauses, your business could face serious tax liabilities. The Court of Appeal (Atholl House, 2022) confirmed that contracts take precedence in tax cases. This means well-drafted agreements provide a strong defence, but only if they accurately reflect a business-to-business engagement. Too many businesses rely on generic templates or repurposed employment contracts that don’t stand up to scrutiny. Don’t let a weak contract undermine your compliance. -> If you'd like help, speak to us about our contract reviews and packs. #contracts #contractpacks #IR35 #Offpayroll #legal #IR35Shield #Contracting #Contractors #HR #HMRC #Compliance #Tax #contractlaw #IR35compliance

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Wondering how to get your job application noticed in the crowded UK dev market? I've been chatting with a lot of software developers recently, some early in their careers, others with years of experience, and one thing keeps coming up: "How do I actually stand out?" The truth is, the UK dev job market is tough right now. But I’ve seen what works (and what doesn’t), and I wanted to share a few tips that have helped candidates land interviews, and offers. Here’s what I’d recommend if you’re applying right now: 1. Customise, customise, customise - I can’t stress this enough: tailor your CV and cover letter for every role. Show how your experience matches their needs. Make it super easy for someone to see why you're a great fit at a glance. 2. Build (and show) cool stuff - Your GitHub or personal site can speak louder than your CV. Share real projects, ideally something beyond a to-do list app. If you've used a company’s API or built something relevant to them? Shout about it! 3. Let your passion show - Make it clear what kind of work excites you, whether that’s fintech, AI, or clean architecture. Add a bit of personality to your LinkedIn or portfolio. It helps you connect with the right teams. 5. Network is your net-worth - Go to meet-ups, tech events, comment on posts, send friendly DMs. A lot of roles never get posted online. The more people who know what you’re looking for, the more chances you’ll get. 6. Stay sharp with in-demand skills - Keep an eye on what’s hot in the UK, Java, JavaScript, C#, and cloud stuff are still in demand. Even just having a recent course or project to show you’re staying current can help. 7. Don’t get discouraged - You’ll hear nothing back from some roles. That’s normal. If a job feels right but you haven’t heard back in a couple of weeks, follow up! It shows you're proactive, not pushy. 8. Make your online presence count - Your LinkedIn and GitHub should clearly show what you're about, your skills, interests, and what you’re aiming for. This is often the first thing someone sees before they even open your CV. - Final thought: If you’re applying right now, especially as a junior, just know it’s normal to feel stuck sometimes. The first job is often the hardest to get, but once you're in, everything gets easier. Keep going, keep building, keep learning. And if we’re connected, don’t hesitate to reach out. Always happy to offer a bit of advice or point you in the right direction. #SoftwareEngineering #TechCareers #UKJobs #DevCommunity #JobSearchTips #CareerAdvice #RecruiterLife #SoftwareDeveloper #HiringTechTalent

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