I'm in the same situation as you (or was, until about a week ago). I'd been looking for a new contract for a couple of months and also had lots of enthusiastic calls with recruiters, only to be ghosted or hear nothing more. A couple of my contractor friends have also had the same experience. Compare to late last year, when I was batting contracts away whilst I was taking a couple of months off. Picked up a new contract when I was ready within a few days in November.
Whilst I'm a full stack dev, I found narrowing my CV, or creating multiple versions (one FE, one BE, one devops) helped sustain more interest/got me through more doors. Being a full stack dev puts you behind anyone that pitches themselves as a BE dev for BE roles, FE dev for FE roles, and so on. It's assumed that since they're 'specialised', they're better suited for the role.
Same goes for tech. Whilst everyone _here_ will appreciate the fact knowing/working/having experience in multiple languages will generally mean your the better programmer, it's not something HR seems to grok.
In short: If there's a Go contract, send a version of your CV that pitches you as a BE Go Dev and that only. Once you're through the door and speaking to the people that matter, you can open up about your other experience.
As for timing, generally now is a good time. Some companies will have budget to use before the end of the tax year. Some companies will have new budgets at the start of the next tax year.
There have been a lot of layoffs, so the market isn't quite as much in the favour of developers at the moment.
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Anyhow, that said, I've just taken a perm role again, just for another year or so whilst I learn some new tech and hopefully the contract market sorts itself out. It's only about £1k/month less. Worth it for the security, for now.
Whilst I'm a full stack dev, I found narrowing my CV, or creating multiple versions (one FE, one BE, one devops) helped sustain more interest/got me through more doors. Being a full stack dev puts you behind anyone that pitches themselves as a BE dev for BE roles, FE dev for FE roles, and so on. It's assumed that since they're 'specialised', they're better suited for the role.
Same goes for tech. Whilst everyone _here_ will appreciate the fact knowing/working/having experience in multiple languages will generally mean your the better programmer, it's not something HR seems to grok.
In short: If there's a Go contract, send a version of your CV that pitches you as a BE Go Dev and that only. Once you're through the door and speaking to the people that matter, you can open up about your other experience.
As for timing, generally now is a good time. Some companies will have budget to use before the end of the tax year. Some companies will have new budgets at the start of the next tax year.
There have been a lot of layoffs, so the market isn't quite as much in the favour of developers at the moment.
---
Anyhow, that said, I've just taken a perm role again, just for another year or so whilst I learn some new tech and hopefully the contract market sorts itself out. It's only about £1k/month less. Worth it for the security, for now.