u/National_Raisin_1948

I’m an India-based backend/AI engineer (8+ years) currently contracting for a UK fintech alongside running my own company. Looking for honest input from this community on a few things, since most overseas-contractor content online is generic LinkedIn fluff.

A bit of context on me before the questions - I run mostly Java/Spring Boot, Node.js, Python/FastAPI, with deep PostgreSQL, Kafka, and Kubernetes experience. Currently building AI products (multi-model LLM routing, RAG, real-time streaming). My current UK rate sits around £300-400/day standard. Direct contracts, not via agency.

Things I’d genuinely value perspective on:

1. Rate benchmarking for overseas contractors - am I underselling? UK contractors I’ve talked to seem to quote significantly higher day rates, but I’m aware location-based pricing is contested. How do you think about this when working with UK SMEs vs enterprise?
2. Outside-IR35 structures - most of my engagements have been direct B2B (my India entity to the UK client). Anyone here worked both sides of this and seen meaningful differences in how clients approach overseas vs UK-resident contractors?
3. Finding outside-IR35 work specifically - agencies seem to mostly route inside-IR35 stuff. Where are people sourcing genuinely outside-IR35 contracts in 2026? Direct networks? Specific platforms? I tried LinkedIn but to no positive avail.
4. AI/LLM contract market in the UK - feels like there’s a gap between “we want AI” demand and engineers who’ve actually shipped production LLM systems (not just demos). Curious if others are seeing the same and what rates that work commands.

Happy to share more about what’s worked/not worked from my side.