IT contractor Gerardo Del Guercio, awarded an MBE in the 2009 Queen’s Birthday Honours List ‘For services to the creation and implementation of major IT systems’ at the UK Border Agency, explains to ContractorCalculator how his entry into contracting was a happy accident.
“Like many IT professionals, throughout the late nineties I’d often thought of making the move into IT contracting,” explains Gerardo. “But the security and perks of a good permanent job can be hard to give up.”
IT contractor’s apprenticeship
But fortunately for the contracting sector generally, and his clients specifically, turmoil in the IT sector in 1999 and the resulting corporate casualties placed Gerardo in an excellent position.
“I’d had a fairly classic career up to the point when I had to choose to become an IT contractor or return to employment,” Gerardo recalls. “After my computing degree and a work placement with the charity Shelter, I moved into my first job. This was in distribution, starting me off in the data warehousing field.”
After a stint with a large insurer, which gained him experience with major capital data warehousing and database projects, Gerardo joined a computer consultancy. “It’s in IT consulting where you really learn about the disparity between what clients will pay for an IT specialist and what you get paid as an employee of a consultancy,” he says. “I also realised that time as a consultant sets you in good stead to break out on your own as an IT contractor.”
Making the leap into IT contracting
Then, right in the middle of a consulting project with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), Gerardo’s employer went bust. “In retrospect, this was probably the best bad news I’ve ever received in my career,” he jokes.
“My report on the software I’d been brought in to evaluate was not positive – in fact I’d said it would not work, and explained why,” continues Gerardo, “So when my then employer folded, almost immediately the FCO asked me if I wanted to help fix the problem, but as an independent IT contractor. I did the maths – I would only have to work 84 days at the rate they were offering to equal the salary I was getting, so it was a no-brainer. And that’s how my IT contracting career started!”
Since then, Gerardo has been the architect behind some of the public sector’s biggest and most successful IT projects, culminating in the work he completed for the UK Border Agency, which resulted in his nomination for an MBE.
IT contracting takes focus
Gerardo maintains his ongoing stream of new IT contracts by being a specialist in a niche field: “I’ve been fortunate that I very quickly made a name for myself within the FCO and related agencies by specialising in developing pilot projects from scratch. When proved they would work, then the big firms would take over and complete the job.”
At times this has mean hiring sub-contractors to share the load, and Gerardo admits this has not always gone smoothly: “IT contractors have got a bad name in some quarters for trying to get as much money out of clients for as little effort as possible.
“When I’m working for a client I stay 100% focused. If that means putting in extra time on-site or in my own office, then as far as I’m concerned that’s what you have to do when you run your own business. In the past some IT contractors I’ve hired have not always shared those ethics, but fortunately at the cutting edge most do.”
Tips for first-time IT contractors
Now in his tenth year as a successful IT contractor, Gerardo has clearly been doing something right, and he puts much of his success down to his client focus and completing projects on spec’, on time and on budget.
I'd urge anyone thinking about contracting to make the move, otherwise you might just spend the rest of your career as an employee wondering what you've missed out on! 
Gerardo Del Guerico
“I’ve always been a limited company IT contractor, which is essential if you subcontract work to other contractors,” explains Gerardo. “Early on a client said I had to use an agency if I wanted the contract, and I chose Parity, which I’ve stayed with ever since.”
And how about winning that first contract? Gerardo admits he was offered a golden opportunity. “But I took the decision to take the opportunity and give IT contracting a go, despite my fears about not having the security of employment,” he says. “I’d urge anyone thinking about contracting to make the move, otherwise you might just spend the rest of your career as an employee wondering what you’ve missed out on!”
