1. #1
    Xpertz William Antrim's Avatar
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    Default Anyone in the IT industry?

    I need some help with labour costs for a theoretical network upgrade. I need to have a legitimate quote for my university piece so I need a company name or some other reference that my tutor can look at and see that I have not just made it up.

    The upgrade requirement is as follows.


    4 Sites across Europe - 3 "unit" sites and one HQ site. The hq site has a router and 4 hubs to be upgraded to switches and up to 100m of cat3 cabling to be upgraded to cat5e. The 3 "unit" sites have each got the same wiring and 3 switches to be upgraded.

    All four sites also need to have new software installed for setting up 2 data VLANs at each unit site (6 in all) and 4 more data VLANs at HQ. Each site also needs its own voip VLAN.

    Each site also needs a gateway router to be installed.

    All hosts (157 in total at all 4 sites) need antivirus and firewall services setting up on them.

    A VPN needs to be set up also on the Web Server at the HQ, it is unknown how many client VPNs will be set up at this time but that figure can be ignored.


    I think that is everything. All of the hardware and software purchases are assumed to have been made already and this is purely the theoretical price for someone (or multiple personnel) to come in and install the new hardware/software.

    As previously described I need a cost analysis from an actual company - ie I need a business name and address/website I can reference to say I contacted these people to ascertain said labour costs.


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  2. #2
    Hand me a gun and ask me again zii's Avatar
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    I thought lots of Infra' projects usually run out of the Infra dept and then buy in the required materials, and put together our own project plan. Likely something this size does not need a PM but would usually be handled within a network team.

    If we were running this, then we'd buy the kit ( cat5e cable, switches and uplink routers, 1u servers with OpenVPN for example) and then install this ourselves. Cost for labour would be handled ourselves i.e us employees or contractors get paid.

  3. #3
    Xpertz William Antrim's Avatar
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    Any idea of cost? Even a ball park labour figure is good?
    "dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"

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    Quote Originally Posted by William Antrim View Post
    Any idea of cost? Even a ball park labour figure is good?
    Without a site survey an accurate is difficult. However, if I were needing this work done, I would ballpark it as:
    2 people needed at each site.
    - one 'desktop' person to handle all the AV and FW installs on the client computers (you said hosts, I assume that means client computer. Host is a very ambiguous term that can mean anything from a blade/server in a HA/DRS ESX cluster to at shitty old laptop connecting to the network.) and to help the engineer as needed.
    - one Engineer to install and setup all the network devices.

    1 week at each site.

    I would put the labor cost on the lower end and expect the Desktop to be billed at $100US/hr and the Engineer at $150US/hr.

    So that would be a total cost of $250US/hr x 40(hours in a week) x 4(weeks). If you want to add in travel expenses you can as most places in the US would want those covered.

    Grand total of labor cost would be $40,000 US.

    Others may argue but thats what i would expect without doing a site survey and only knowing a few details about the project. In all likelihood they also wouldn't need an entire week at each site but you also need to count in travel to each site... fly/drive in on Monday and out on Friday. So actual 'work time would be cut a lot by travel.

    I work with a lot of companies in the US that do this type of work but I don't know any that would do a legitimate quote for you without the potential for a contract.

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    Bitter Old Fart Dribble Joy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by hudsonbeck View Post
    I would put the labor cost on the lower end and expect the Desktop to be billed at $100US/hr and the Engineer at $150US/hr.
    Wait, WHAT?!

    That's two to three hundred grand a year!

  6. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dribble Joy View Post
    Wait, WHAT?!

    That's two to three hundred grand a year!
    These are not figures that the engineer and desktop are getting paid. There are contractor/consulting rates. I would also say they are probably on the low end. For specialized engineers i would expect to pay $200-250/hr US.

    Usually you can figure the person actually doing the work is getting about half or so as a hourly or salary rate. I have been on both sides of this many times.

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    Quote Originally Posted by hudsonbeck View Post
    These are not figures that the engineer and desktop are getting paid. There are contractor/consulting rates. I would also say they are probably on the low end. For specialized engineers i would expect to pay $200-250/hr US.

    Usually you can figure the person actually doing the work is getting about half or so as a hourly or salary rate. I have been on both sides of this many times.
    At my work, we dont even get out of bed for less then $250/hr
    But then again, Denmark is in general fucking crazy expensive when it comes to.. Everything..
    And when working with IT, we take what we want.. If the customers want the best, they'll pay for the best

    And yeah the technician only gets about half.
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    Bitter Old Fart Dribble Joy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dropout View Post
    And yeah the technician only gets about half.
    'Only.'

    At $150 (~£90) that's still £45 an hour to the engineer, or over 90k per annum. UK average IT wages don't come close to that.

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    CmyKK F4nb01 <3 aKe`cj's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dribble Joy View Post
    'Only.'

    At $150 (~£90) that's still £45 an hour to the engineer, or over 90k per annum. UK average IT wages don't come close to that.

    the number put on billable hours should not be confused with wages.
    also, assuming ("only" ) 50% of the billable amount to go straight into the employees pockets is way off.
    50% of the amount being employee related expenses sounds about right, but the final wage will be much closer to approx. 30% of the total cost - certainly in Germany where you have to take into account a number of indirect labour costs (pension, health insurance, holidays, social welfare).

    anyway ... comparing wages of different countries is a bit apples and oranges unless you also take purchasing power and total cost of living into account.
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  10. #10
    Xpertz William Antrim's Avatar
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    Hudson you have a IT company for costing this up? You got a site I can quote? Or company name?
    "dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"

  11. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by William Antrim View Post
    Hudson you have a IT company for costing this up? You got a site I can quote? Or company name?
    When do you have to have this done by? I actually just started a new job eight days ago. I might can reach out to some of my old contacts with vendors who do this type of work. I'm not sure how responsive they would be without the potential of a contract but you never know. I can't promise anything though!

    By the way the company that I just started with's parent company is based out of Switzerland and Germany so I will be traveling there every couple months if any of you guys are around maybe we could grab a beer. I'm in the states now but when we work on the global IT initiatives that usually comes out of Switzerland or Germany and we all meet there.

  12. #12
    Bitter Old Fart Dribble Joy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by aKe`cj View Post
    the number put on billable hours should not be confused with wages.
    Ah, sorry, thought this was full time.

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    The REAL Walker
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dribble Joy View Post
    'Only.'

    At $150 (~£90) that's still £45 an hour to the engineer, or over 90k per annum. UK average IT wages don't come close to that.
    As aKe said, theres all the different things you have to pay with those 50%.. Like taxes, which in Denmark is at about 55% if you have a high salary. That and some smaller things aswell.
    And keep in mind what I said, Denmark is expensive..
    Want to buy a car? tax: 180% + another tax: 25%.. Yes, that is 205% taxes on cars.
    Everything we buy have (at least) that 25% tax on it aswell.


    And Im waaaay offtopic heh.. Sorry about that.
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  14. #14
    Xpertz William Antrim's Avatar
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    It's got to be done by 17th April and is a university course only it should only take someone 5 minutes to read and put a number on labour costs.
    "dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"

  15. #15

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    I reached out to a couple people but not sure if I will get a response.

    If i was you, I would call some mom and pop IT shop in your area and have them do it... I would even offer to pay for it although I would hope they wouldn't take payment.. it just might help motivate them.

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