Help With Profilling the Profession

[Doug]

What I would like to see is a survey that assessed the numbers of contracts per area, length of contract, source of contract, type of contract, how many people worked on the contract.

Just for my clarification- when you say contact you don't mean in the sense 'contract of employment on project x or for company y for a period of three weeks' you mean in the sense 'company x has been employed by y to complete (insert work of some sort)'.

If so, would you want a snap shot e.g. as of jan 1 how many, length, etc. etc. contracts currently are you blah blah blah? Or would you want something along the lines of in the year ... of our lord blah blah blah tell us .... everything you did in said year?

edit- PS the back half of all ptp reports contain the results broken up by different positions/areas of work. So technically if one was so inclined that could separate out fieldwork from other areas. Though I not sure if you wanted to exclude fieldwork and asked completely different questions at which point this info is probably of no use.

[Unitof1]

Apart from I dont know what I want I quite like the idea of both snap shot and also in the year of our lord we did this many contracts and they cost such an amount. I can see all types specialists being able to relate to that information. The contracts could be related to the standards and codes of the ifa. So blaa bbllar watching briefs were done in manchester, average length of contract four months from meeting the client to final invoice, monies spent on radiocarbon dates x, monies spent on medieval pot specialists zero. Excavations three, site staff 10 for two months, final report lost somewhere but the clients paid so dont care. Also tenders submitted, invitations to tender recieved. All I think jolly useful profiles of the profession information and more inportantly it seperates us from the boring old salary people. So called employed site staff could relate to the survey as worked three sites, on one I got travel and subsistance on two I made the tea. Infact it would be interesting to know if they knew how many contracts they worked on or if they even cared.

[Doug]

It does sound very interesting. I would say with the amount of information you want to gather and number of questions you would like to ask it would have to be its own separate survey. Not a bad thing but it also lets you target better as well. I would say you may have to limit some of the questions e.g. monies spent on radiocarbon dates x, monies spent on medieval pot specialists zero. I think I would find that incredibly interesting but I not sure how many people track that- outside of a project bases. In other words, would you be asking people to sort through all of their project spread sheets? No one will do it. Some would probably store that info but it would be far and few between.

I think it would be very interesting- how much is spent on archaeology broken down by some costs- staff, equipment, (might not get to specific but could have something like- outside specialists). I would guess many people would be interested in that data.

[Unitof1]

currently just about to put my 2011-12 selfassesment to bed as you have to by january30. On my income side I have a list of invoices, they are all related to projects, after that expenses and payments to specialists although by not finding a single medieval bit of pot ever I have managed to cut the medieval pot sniffers out of the equation. Accross the land all the others indivuals and companies that might care to call themselves archaeologists are if they have not already got this info on a spread sheet, busy sorting out recipts and bits of paper that they keep in an old shoe box under the bed.

[Bodger51]

Yes nomenclature reconciliation is important for the analytical relevance, but are we discussing divisibility or the indivisibility of individuals?

yeah, but no, but yeah, but no, etc.

[Wax]

I find myself agreeing with Unit of One. What I would like to see is a break down of the number of people who call themselves archaeologists and the sort of contract they are employed on ie full time permenant, rolling short term, self employed etc. And the sector in which they work ie Museum, County Council, Charity, Commercial Unit, Government etc. I think the contract type is going to be the relevant piece of info and I suspect many like myself may have several different types of contract in a year. And like Unit I have all my info on a spread sheet cause if I don't the Tax man will have something to say, might be interesting to see who is paying what taxes or has signed up to Tax avoidance schemes.:face-stir::face-stir:

[Bodger51]

Dont go playing the Jack in the Box ruling

[Doug]

Sorry, should have been more specific unit- yes, everyone will have invoices, expenses, etc. but I would wonder about how they label as such. So small time operator may only have a couple of projects a year and maybe only a few invoices so easy to remember what everything is. Others might have a lot of projects and can't remember which is what- of course labeling takes care of that. My concern is how many people would label medieval pottery fines specialists report etc etc. For every click of the mouse you make people undertake you lose some of them.

I will end with saying though- we won't know till we try. Just a concern I have when you go into very detailed questions.

Wax- I doubt many people would share that sort of info- contracts in, yes. money out yes, taxes and profits .... I am not sure. Seems like people tend to guard the info pretty close. ptp has some of that but it is generic stuff like bands 5%-20% and we can't release any individuals or companies details. Anyone taking a survey like Unit proposes probable would require confidentiality.

[GnomeKing]

thanks for taking the time to discuss Doug. SRY4Ax-grnd