Why the Cheapest Contractor Isn’t Always the Cheapest Hire

When I’m talking to clients about a new contractor, the conversation often turns to rates. That’s hardly surprising. Every business has a budget, and every hiring manager wants to know they’re getting good value.

What I’ve learnt over the years, though, is that the cheapest contractor is very rarely the cheapest person to hire.

If you’ve ever managed a project, you’ll probably know exactly what I mean. One contractor arrives and spends the first week finding their feet. They’re perfectly capable, but they need constant direction, ask lots of questions and take a while to become productive. Another walks in on Monday morning, spends half an hour understanding the project and quietly gets on with solving problems. By Friday, they’ve already made life easier for everyone around them.

Yes, that second contractor may have cost another £5 or £10 an hour. But by the time you’ve factored in management time, delays and the impact on the rest of the team, they’re often the cheaper option by a considerable margin.

That’s why we never recruit on hourly rate alone.

Technical recruitment isn’t about buying a commodity. Two people can have almost identical CVs, similar experience and ask for roughly the same money, yet perform very differently once they’re on site. The difference is often in the things that don’t fit neatly onto a CV. How quickly they understand a problem. How well they communicate. Whether they take ownership or simply wait to be told what to do.

Those are the things we’re looking for when we speak to candidates. It’s why we spend time getting to know them properly instead of simply searching for keywords on a database. Anyone can match software packages, qualifications or job titles. Understanding how someone actually works takes a conversation.

I’ve seen plenty of businesses focus so heavily on saving a few pounds an hour that they’ve ended up spending far more in the long run. Projects slip, deadlines move, experienced engineers spend their time supervising rather than delivering, and before long the saving has disappeared several times over.

Of course, I’m not suggesting that rate doesn’t matter. It does. Budgets are real, and every recruitment decision has to make commercial sense. But I would always encourage clients to look at value rather than simply cost.

The best contractor isn’t necessarily the cheapest person available.

More often than not, they’re the one who quietly delivers exactly what you needed, causes the fewest headaches and leaves the project in a better place than they found it. That’s usually the contractor who turns out to be the best investment.




Photo by Andre Taissin on Unsplash

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Why the Cheapest Contractor Isn’t Always the Cheapest Hire
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