Hi All,

Can anyone suggest what the hourly IT contract rate in Zurich might be for an Oracle/Informatica developer?

103.678CHF

dave

Thanks Dave .. I guess the good old days of CHF 125 are gone then?

more likely 900 or so a day before agency cut nowadays.

The good ol' days had rates far higher than 125 an hour mate

Hourly rates seem to be a thing of the past. The clients concept of a 'day' is also a joke.

You also have the like of Wipro placing guys at 700 a day (how, you cry? they don't salary them here, that's how) - how can you compete with that?

No that I'm bitter and twisted or anything .

On theb bright side I think rates are a little better than 18 months ago - try for a 1000 CHF a day all in.

CHF 900 a day .. I wonder if that would be enough to survive on considering a wife and child and all the necessary expenses.

Yes. Do you know where you can buy self-raising flour ?

dave

I would say it's more than many others have to survive on. That's 18'000 a month before chop-chop-chop...

Yes I think CHF1000/day sounds quite good considering the going rate in London is CHF 1098 .. and you can still get away with paying like 15-18% tax.
I guess in Zurich with some astute tax planning you should be able to get quite close to 15% tax all in.

This big bank rate to agency is around 1050-1150 .
Factor in agency cut greed and "added value", 10-20% of this.

This big bank dropped rates 10-15% at the end of last year, but they appear to be creeping up.

Can you survive on 900CHF?
Only 3 times average Swiss family income?
So long as you can slum it with a Boxster as your 2nd porsche.

Edit: Skills obviously play a part.
Are you a 25 year veteran database guru or just out of school helldesk monkey?

Neither a UC Berkeley educated 11 year developer of sorts ...

Helldesk monkey, have to remember that one!

Not legally.

Not legally.

Actually, many people don't mind paying tax in Switzerland - obviously no one wants to pay more than they have to but at least here you can see where it goes - and it certainly isn't weapons .

Hi Swissbob, your comment interests me. Why can you not get down to 15% tax all in in Zurich on 18K?

Well that's 216K a year so I suspect that even with the most generous deductions (not that ZH is famous for allowing the more grey areas) you're going to be in the higher tax brackets. 20% could be achievable with a good accountant?

But you are going to set up your own company and run a company car and pay yourself expenses and representation allowances plus your home and mobile phone bills, large pension policy with additional risk protection ie life assurance, 100% invalidity cover etc, make reserves and have two kids and a non-working wife and the list goes on. I run on business expenses ie external to salaries of 80K per year. That kills a lot of tax...

ok, fair enough on the pension - so much better here than in the UK - but have you been put through the mangle by the tax authorities? I think I used to get away with about the same until I was squeezed dry .

I should be careful what I say really (don't want to attract unnecessary interest) but I have no problems with the tax dept. We have had our "discussions" but I am fully aware of what I am entitled to and can point them in the direction of the relevant paragraph in law when they argue. At that point they give up.

You should put that in tins and sell it . No wait, you probably do....

Hi Guys ..
I guess with UBS on a daily rate it looks like they would want me to go through the payroll.
Will investigate the company side and expensing legitimate expenses but then again for me the bottom line is savings so don't wan to expense myself out..
I looked at http://www.estv.admin.ch/e/dienstlei...uerrechner.htm

but not sure if I can expense mortgage interest payments in UK on rental and associated expenses etc etc ..

If so that would be great.