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7 minutes

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1513

I have been “on the bench” twice this year of 2025. I was Principal Software Engineer at Solirius-Reply for 2 years and then that employment came to the end in June. I immediately started searching for a new role, open to permanent or open to contract, because of awareness of job market. During my employment, I interviewed a score of software engineers, from junior to mid-level to principal engineer and a few of them, had stories about being on the job search 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 and Total Jobs, but I felt this was boring and staid. The number of jobs advertised on JobServe has tumbled in 5 years. You can see trend itself over 6 month by looking IT Jobs Watch UK. (Incidentally, this website looks like Struts or WebWork code)

IT Jobs Watch Java

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 is 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 receiving 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 mandate 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 hide my CV from search is all.
• I considering removing Malt and I will make a 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 blanked immediately, because of my past experiences over that site a couple of years ago.
• Glassdoor UK is always fun read to check out consultancies and people’s impressions of working for them. I especially found this consultancy review enlightening. Also there are jobs on Glassdoor UK that repeated elsewhere: senior Java developer.
• Arenella ICT is ran by a LinkedIn person, who lives in the Netherlanbds. I signed up on October 2025, but to date, I had nothing in my inbox: not a sniff. I will stick around , because there are European (Outside IR35 me thinks) opportunites that could 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!

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 challenger, because it opens the door to European clients and Outside IR35 contracts in the future. On the other hand, I had no bites on the fishing rod at all. There is a social team working in London it, but the lack of viable projects 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 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 personal bank details like account number or sort code (unless you are genuine business)
• BE HYPER aware of scams – phishing, golden gooses and the rest of it
• REVERSE IMAGE SEARCH is your new best friend

All the best!

Peter Pilgrim, November 2025

+PP+