Contract recruitment gets sold two ways, and both are wrong. The evangelists say contractors are always faster and better. The sceptics say they're expensive plasters on planning failures. Having run an ERP contract desk alongside a permanent one for years, we'd put it differently: contract is a tool with a shape, and the trick is matching the shape to the work.
Where contract wins outright
Projects. An ERP implementation has a start, a middle and a go-live — exactly the shape a contract engagement is built for. You get someone who has done this six times, they do it a seventh, they leave before they'd have become an expensive fixture. Upgrades, migrations, rescues and maternity-style coverage all share the shape.
Rate-wise, UK ERP contracting in 2026 runs roughly £495–£715 a day at the SAP Business One end, £550–£825 for NetSuite, and up to £990 on S/4HANA programme work — with genuine migration specialists above all of those. US independents bill $95–$195 an hour depending on platform and seniority. Steep? Against a permanent salary, sure. Against three months of go-live slippage, cheap.
The IR35 question comes up in every UK conversation, so: inside-IR35 through partner payrolls is now the default on larger programmes, and outside-IR35 survives mainly on genuinely deliverable-shaped engagements. We advise on determinations as part of any contract search — it changes the rate, so it can't be an afterthought.
Where contract quietly fails
Ownership. The person who runs your system year after year, who knows why every workaround exists — renting that role means renewing your organisational memory every six months. We've seen businesses run platform ownership on rolling contracts for years, and it's the most expensive way to own an ERP that anyone has invented.
The pattern that actually works, and the one we set up most often: contractors carry the delivery peak, and the permanent platform owner starts before go-live so the knowledge lands in-house. Sequencing beats ideology.
Need the delivery shape priced for a real project? Talk to our contract desk — or browse who's available now. And if you're a contractor whose pipeline has gone quiet, the honest conversation about specialising is one we have weekly.