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8 minutes

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1656

I have been “on the bench” twice this year of 2025. I was a Principal Software Engineer at Solirius-Reply for 2 years and then that employment abruptly came to the end in June. I immediately started searching for a new role, open to both permanent or contract, because of awareness of job market. I had to find something sooner rather than later to sustain an income. During my employment as a principal engineer, I was fortunate and respected enough to interviews scores of software engineers [for both Solirius and Cognizant]. I interviewed candidates with experiences from junior to mid-level to principal engineer and a few of them, a few told me their sob stories about being on the job search maarket-for several months, say 2 to 6 months. They reported it was not easy of there, because of the lay-offs in USA and the economic outlook of the UK, confidence was low, the thought process was more cut-throat. So I was less surprised and also better prepared when my turn of “out-of-work” came.

In years before, I relied on JobServe UK , CW Jobs UK and Total Jobs UK, but I felt like just relying on these usual suspects sites was boring and staid. The number of jobs advertised on JobServe has tumbled in 5 years. You can see the trend itself over 6 month by looking IT Jobs Watch UK. (Incidentally, that website looks like if was built against Apache Struts or WebWork framework)

IT Jobs Watch Java Jobs

IT Jobs Watch Java 2

IT Jobs Watch 3

They say if you want to affect change, do something different every day. I dusted myself off and I searched for alternative job platforms.

Here was my list:

1. Hubstaff Talent https://hubstafftalent.net/
2. Hackajob https://hackajob.com/
3. HackerRank https://hackajob.com/
4. SimplyHired https://simplyhired.com
5. Malt https://www.malt.uk/dashboard/freelancer/
6. Europe Remotely https://europeremotely.com
7. CV Library UK https://www.cv-library.co.uk/
8. Glassdoor UK https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/
9. Reed UK https://www.reed.co.uk/jobs/java-developer-jobs?salaryFrom=90000
10. Indeed UK https://uk.indeed.com/q-it-contractor-jobs.html
11. Arenella ICT https://www.arenella-ict.com/
12. Job Leads UK https://www.jobleads.com/

Here are my conclusions:

I found CV Library to be useful alternative to JobServe. The top site to find jobs in the autumn 2025 was LinkedIn Jobs. They have invested in the AI search, which was helpful in sending alert notifications to jobs according to the role. It is well worth your time, installing the LinkedIn mobile app and electing to receive alerts.

• I found CV Library UK to be useful alternative to JobServe. After 5 months, I deleted the Hubstaff Talent account, I just had no pulls on the fishing rod.
• I deleted my Hackajob account, because all I had was interest from JPMC and LMAX, which mandated only on-site work.
• I switched off the notifications from Indeed UK, the AI is next door to useless, it would send me roles and jobs that were not appropriate, like DevOps jobs in Leeds and not my core skills, Principal Consultant – operational technology delivery. Sometimes it was useful to be. I just hid my CV from searchers is all.
• I am considering removing my Malt profile and I will make a final decision in 2026 about that site
• I briefly looked at Europe Remotely and Simply Hired, but I was not impressed on the casual search. Hacker Rank was one site blanked immediately, because of my past experiences over that site a couple of years ago. I did not think the UX had substantially changed.
• Glassdoor UK is always fun read to check out consultancies and people’s reviews and impressions of working for them. I especially found this consultancy review enlightening. Also there are advertised jobs on Glassdoor UK, however these are repeated elsewhere. See also senior Java developer.
• Arenella ICT is ran by a LinkedIn person, Kevin Parkings, who lives in the Netherlands. I signed up on October 2025, but to date, I had nothing in my inbox: not a whiff nor sniff. I will stick around , because there are European (Outside IR35 me thinks) opportunites that could eventually happen.
• Avoid Job Leads UK, I just did not trust it with my PII. YMMV

I will give a special shout-out to Elwyn Griffith for his Daily Contract Lunchtime blasts on LinkedIn. He collates contract lead opportunities for BAs, Data Specialists, Devs and more. Here is the 26/11 – Day Rate Jobs: (2025) blast. By the way, Elwyn is a bonafide UK IT contractor, you can trust him and he also once upona time worked for Deutsche Bank!

Let’s now go over the specific alternative job platform and sites.

Hubstaff Talent

Hubstaff Talent 1

Hubstaff Talent 2

Hubstaff Talent Search

Hubstaff Talent Freelance Profile

Like I said with Hubstaff Talent I did not receive a single enquiry over 5 months. I mistaken clicked and applied on one job, which sounded like to a scam operation.

Malt UK

I am in two-minds over Malt. On the one hand, it could be a challenger, because it opens the door to European clients and Outside IR35 contracts in the future. On the other hand, I had no bites whatsoever on my fishing rod at all. There is a social team working in London, but the lack of viable projects and requests for work means I may well delete it come February 2026.

Malt 1

Malt 2

Malt 3 – Empty Inbox

Malt 4

Hackajob

Hackajob 1

Hackajob 2

Hackajob 2

Hackajob 3

Hackajob 4 – My profile has got to go – baleeted

Although I have not shown the screenshot here, one can set salary expectations on Hackajob:

• Minimum Salary – United Kingdom (per annum) e.g £100,000 (GBP)
• Minimum Salary – Remote (per annum) e.g. £100,000 (GBP)
• Minimum Day Rate – Contract e.g £500 (GBP) – you can set flags for Inside IR35 and Outsider IR35, but you CANNOT associate a separate minimum day rate for either circumstance.

Hackajob 5 –

Hackajob 6 –

Personal Identifiable Information

My strong concern is trusting these new fangled job search platforms. I would be very wary of putting everything about your Personal Identifiable Information (PII) into new cloud SaaS. For one thing, the security-conscious worry about vulnerabilities in the design of these solutions. Supplier-chain attacks are a real thing. Data theft is increasing with surprising lack of due-diligence.

• DO NOT place your full living address on your CV
• Avoid sharing any government related information such National Insurance (NI) numbers, passport information and driving license details.
• DO NOT write personal bank details like account number and/or sort code (unless you are genuine business selling products)
• BE HYPER aware of digital scams – phishing, golden gooses, social engineering; and the rest of it
• REVERSE IMAGE SEARCH is your new best friend

All the best!

Peter Pilgrim, November 2025

+PP+