UK tech contracting
One contractor, or the whole squad. Shortlisted in three days.
We supply contractors to UK technology teams across data, AI, cloud, platform, engineering and architecture. You get three shortlisted people per role inside three working days, whether it is one seat or an eight-person build team. No fee until someone starts, no retainer and no exclusivity.
Contractors supplied across the UK: London, the regional tech hubs and fully remote
Contract hiring is UK only. Hiring in New York or San Francisco? We place permanent staff there. See permanent recruitment.
shortlisted people per seat, inside three working days
of contract recruitment behind the network we call on
contract and permanent placements as Hurren & Hope since 2013
Contractors and delivery squads placed into teams like
The problemThe role has been open six weeks. The project has not moved.
You do not have a hiring problem. You have a delivery problem wearing a hiring problem's coat. Every week that seat is empty, something downstream slips.
- You advertised, got 90 applications, and none of them can do the job.
- Your usual agency sent CVs on day nine. Two had already accepted elsewhere.
- Nobody in the business will give you a straight answer on IR35, so the role sits in limbo.
- You need five people, not one. Everyone you call fills the easy role and goes quiet on the other four.
How we solve itFour problems, four straight answers
The same four points, answered one by one. This is how our contract desk works on every brief.
90 applications, none can do the job
We don't advertise. We call people we know.
Your shortlist comes from contractors who have already delivered for us, and the people they refer. Every name has been spoken to, and we know the work they have actually done, not just what their CV says.
CVs on day nine, two already gone
Three people per role inside three working days.
Before you see a CV we have checked each person's availability, their rate and that they want your project specifically. If the shortlist isn't there in three working days, we tell you, and you have lost nothing.
No straight answer on IR35
A clear view on IR35 before you commit.
We tell you where the role appears to sit, including the year your company would actually count as small under the new thresholds, and your accountant confirms it. Contracts, right to work checks and the April 2026 umbrella rules are handled in house.
Five seats, only the easy one filled
Every seat worked in parallel.
Three people against each seat, in the same three working days. We put the architect and tech lead first, tell you which roles are genuinely scarce and what that means for rate, and hold availability so the squad starts together.
The networkA black book, not a LinkedIn search
Our network is a genuine black book, built over more than 20 years on the contract desk: contractors we have placed, worked with and stayed in touch with between engagements, and the people they trust enough to refer. When your brief lands we pick up the phone to people who know us. We don't send cold messages to strangers on LinkedIn and hope someone replies.
That is why the shortlist arrives in days, and why the people on it turn up ready to work.
- 22 years of contract recruitmentMark's contract career began years before Hurren & Hope was founded in 2013.
- You speak to Mark or MikeThe person who takes your brief runs it to the end. No account team, no handover.
- A fixed margin, shown on the contractAgreed up front and fixed for the engagement, so it does not rise when the rate does.
- No fee until someone startsNo retainer and no exclusivity.
How it worksOne brief. Three days. Three names per seat.
One role or eight, it is the same brief and the same three days. No portal to log into and no 20-page process document.
- 1
Tell us the brief
Fifteen minutes on a call, or three lines in an email: what needs building, by when, and the budget. If it is a team, tell us the shape and we will tell you which seats are hard. If we can't fill it, you hear that on the call.
- 2
We go to our black book, not the job boards
Contractors who have already delivered for us, plus their referrals. We work every seat in parallel, speak to each person, and check availability, rate and that they want your project specifically.
- 3
Three CVs per role in three working days
Shortlisted, briefed, available and interested. On a multi-role build we put the architect and tech lead first, so you start interviewing on day three. Most of our contractors are on site within two weeks of the first conversation.
Ways to engageOne person, a squad, or the whole outcome
Most briefs arrive as one seat on a day rate and grow as demands grow. Some are really a team problem sliced into a single requisition. We will tell you which shape fits.
One person, one bottleneck
The staff engineer who can finally land the migration. The architect who signs off the target state so four teams stop guessing. The data engineer unblocking six analysts. Three to six months, extended more often than not.
Buy it as: day rate.
Three to ten people working as a unit
Architect, tech lead, back-end and front-end engineers, data engineer, ML or generative AI specialist, QA and delivery lead. We shortlist every seat in parallel, land the lead before the team and hold availability so the squad starts together.
Buy it as: day rate per head, or Time & Materials.
A defined deliverable, not people to manage
Where the scope is genuinely fixed, it can be a Statement of Work with acceptance criteria and milestone billing. It only works if the arrangement is real. A day rate with a Statement of Work wrapper is a sham arrangement, so we will say no to that.
Buy it as: Statement of Work, where the scope stands up to it.
"What if we want five people to review, not three?"
DisciplinesWhich contractors do we supply?
Architect down to developer, data scientist through to generative AI. Senior individual contributors, hands-on leads and complete delivery squads, UK-wide, remote or on site.
Data and AI
Data engineers, analytics engineers, data scientists, ML and generative AI engineers, data architects
Cloud and platform
Platform engineers, SRE, DevOps, Kubernetes, AWS, Azure and GCP
Engineering
Tech leads, back-end, front-end and full-stack developers, mobile, QA and test automation
Architecture
Solution, enterprise, data and integration architects
Delivery and interim
Programme and delivery managers, scrum masters, interim heads of function
Whole squads
Any combination of the above, resourced together and started on one date
What you getEverything included. No retainer.
No fee until a contractor starts. If the shortlist is not there in three working days, we say so and you have lost nothing.
The consultant who takes your brief runs it end to end. No handover to an account team and no new contact every quarter.
- Three per role inside three working days. One seat or eight. Briefed, available, rate agreed and genuinely interested in your project.
- A squad plan if it is a team. Which seats to fill first, which will be hard, what the whole thing costs per week, and a start date the group can hit together.
- A straight answer on IR35 before you commit. Including the year your company would actually count as small under the new thresholds.
- Rate benchmarking for the role, so you do not underpay and lose a month finding out. See the UK day rate index.
- Compliance handled in house. Contracts, right-to-work checks, insurance verification and timesheets, including the April 2026 umbrella PAYE rules and the October 2026 right-to-work extension. You approve hours, we invoice, they get paid.
- Day rate or Time & Materials as standard. Statement of Work where the scope genuinely warrants it.
IR35 and off-payrollWhen does the small-company exemption actually apply?
In short: not April 2026. The Companies Act size thresholds rose for financial years beginning on or after 6 April 2025, but off-payroll status is tested across two consecutive financial years and runs on filed accounts, so the exemption lands later. HMRC's guidance at ESM10006a puts the earliest possible tax year at 2027/28. For the most common year ends, 31 December and 31 March, it is 2028/29.
To count as small you must meet two of these three tests
Our year end is X. When do we stop making status determinations?
| Your financial year end | First financial year on the new limits | Accounts filing deadline for that year | Earliest tax year you can count as small |
|---|---|---|---|
| 31 December | 1 January to 31 December 2026 | 30 September 2027 | 6 April 2028 (2028/29) |
| 31 March | 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027 (the year from 1 April 2025 started five days too early) | 31 December 2027 | 6 April 2028 (2028/29) |
| 28 February | 1 March 2026 to 28 February 2027 | 30 November 2027 | 6 April 2028 (2028/29) |
| 30 April | 1 May 2025 to 30 April 2026 | 31 January 2027 | 6 April 2027 (2027/28) |
| 31 July | 1 August 2025 to 31 July 2026 | 30 April 2027 (after 6 April 2027) | 6 April 2028 (2028/29) |
Sources: HMRC Employment Status Manual ESM10006a (including HMRC's worked example); The Companies etc. (Accounts and Audit) (Amendment) Regulations 2024, SI 2024/1303; ITEPA 2003 section 60A. Checked September 2026. HMRC's older ESM10006 page still shows the superseded £10.2m and £5.1m figures, so cite ESM10006a. We are recruiters, not tax advisers, and this is not tax advice: we will tell you where you appear to sit and your accountant confirms it.
2026 changesWhat else changes for contract hiring in 2026?
Umbrella PAYE, 6 April 2026
Where an umbrella company sits in the chain, the agency that contracts with you is jointly and severally liable with the umbrella for unpaid PAYE and NIC. If there is no agency, that liability sits with you as end client. Where we are that agency, it sits with us.
Right to work, 1 October 2026
The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 extends checks to workers, individual sub-contractors, gig and platform workers and agency workers. Penalties are £45,000 for a first breach and £60,000 for a repeat.
Employer NI at 15%
15% above a £5,000 secondary threshold for 2026/27, with the threshold frozen through to 2030/31. It is the number that moves an inside IR35 rate away from an outside one.
A shrinking outside IR35 pool
IPSE's January 2026 research puts 70% of engagements outside IR35, down from 80% in 2023/24. If your role is genuinely outside and the brief says so, that is worth more to candidates than another £50 a day.
Keep up with contractor legislation
Our hiring legislation hub covers IR35, the 2026 umbrella company rules, right to work, US contractor classification and employer of record, in plain English with every official source linked. We check those sources for changes every week.
The marketIs the UK contract market recovering?
Partly. The generalist market is soft and the AI and data market is not, so plan your rate accordingly.
- KPMG and the REC reported in July 2026 that temporary billings rose at their sharpest rate in over three years.
- IT contractor hiring returned to growth in May 2026 after 33 consecutive months of contraction, then cooled again in June.
- APSCo and CV-Library put UK tech vacancies at 126,861 in Q2 2026, up 4.3% year on year, with contract hiring flat year on year and down 6.1% on the quarter.
- AI is the exception: AI vacancies grew 41.8% year on year and AI Engineer postings 74.4%.
- Sources: KPMG and REC UK Report on Jobs, July 2026; ContractorUK; APSCo and CV-Library Q2 2026 labour market data. Last reviewed 4 September 2026.
Day ratesWhat does a UK tech contractor cost per day?
Independent market medians for contractor pay from ITJobsWatch, six months to late September 2026. These are market figures, not our rates: we work to your budget and give you options across a range, so you decide what value looks like.
AI Engineer, median day rate, up 14.3% on a year earlier
Software Engineer, median day rate (£625 in London, £525 outside)
Data Engineer, median day rate, flat on a year earlier
See every role, with its source and sample size, in the UK contractor day rate index
Thirteen years as a firm. Twenty-two on the contract desk.
The market competes on time to shortlist. What decides whether your project lands is whether the person is still there at the end. 94% of our permanent hires are still in role at 12 months.
"Hurren & Hope bring an integrity and honesty to recruitment that's so important when bringing talent into an organisation. They impressed not just me but my whole team with their commitment to quality. I recommend them wholeheartedly."
Chief Information Officer, NHS Professionals
"Hurren & Hope are a preferred supplier for Penguin Random House and gave excellent, personable service through a challenging, complex integration. The team goes the extra mile, with a high degree of integrity."
Systems Specialist, Penguin Random House
"Hurren & Hope REALLY care about the company they're helping and the candidate, and getting it right for both. Simply put, they're the benchmark for how recruiters should act. I've gone back to them for over 15 years, across multiple industries."
Chief People Officer, One Beyond
Placement figures from Hurren & Hope placement records, 2013 to date. Read more testimonials
Need the day rate for your role?
Fifteen minutes on a call and we will benchmark it and tell you where your budget actually lands.
Contract recruitment questions
How can you shortlist in three days when others take two weeks?
Because we are not starting from scratch. The shortlist is largely people we already know, have already placed, or who were referred by someone we placed. We are making calls, not writing adverts.
We need a team, not one contractor. Does the three-day promise still hold?
Yes, and it is the same brief. Three shortlisted people per role, with every seat worked in parallel, so a five-role build is fifteen CVs in three working days. What changes is the sequencing: we tell you which seat to interview first and which roles are genuinely scarce right now.
What does a recruitment agency charge for a contractor?
A margin on the contractor's day rate, charged for every day worked. We agree ours up front as a fixed figure, not a percentage, show it separately on the contract and fix it for the engagement, so if the contractor's rate rises at extension, our margin does not. Nothing is payable until someone starts work.
How long does it take to hire a contractor in the UK?
With us, three shortlisted people per role inside three working days, and most contractors are on site within two weeks of the first conversation. The gap between shortlist and start is almost entirely your interview process. There is no independent benchmark for UK contract time to hire, so ask any agency what its figure is measured from.
Can you work to a Statement of Work rather than a day rate?
Where it genuinely fits, yes. It makes sense when the scope is fixed, the deliverables are definable and you want to buy an outcome rather than manage people: we define the work, our people report to us, and we carry real delivery risk with milestone billing. It does not suit an open-ended engineering seat, and we will tell you when yours is not shaped that way.
What changes for us with umbrella companies in April 2026?
From 6 April 2026, the agency that contracts with the end client is jointly and severally liable with the umbrella company for any PAYE and NIC the umbrella fails to pay. Where there is no agency in the chain, the end client is liable. Where we are the agency, that liability sits with us. See our hiring legislation hub for the detail and HMRC sources.
Do right-to-work checks apply to contractors?
From 1 October 2026, yes, for considerably more of them, including individual sub-contractors and agency workers. Penalties are £45,000 for a first breach and £60,000 for a repeat. We run the checks on everyone we place and hold the evidence.
Who carries the employment risk?
We handle the contracts, right-to-work checks and insurance verification, and we invoice you. Where the engagement is inside IR35 we run it through a compliant umbrella. Where you are exempt under the small-company rules, the contractor's own company determines status.
What if the contractor isn't right?
Contracting is about hitting the ground running, so if that is not happening we need to talk immediately. Call us the same day and we will agree the next step with you, whether that is support for the contractor or a change of person.
Do you supply contractors outside the UK?
No. Our contract function is UK only. We do place permanent staff in New York and San Francisco: different conversation, same phone number.
The fastest way to fill a contract seat is a conversation.
We reply within one hour during UK working hours.
Our contract desk in numbers