if I normally earn 160k/yr as a full time employee but a new company wants to take me in as a contractor what should I set my hourly rate at?
2x. I know someone that owns a contractor agency, and they get paid 2x.
2x is a really good starting point. Moving the decimal of your annual salary over 3 places works well.
show me someone that's paying $160/hr without being direct and not having a Corp
And keep 6 months of money in the bank at all times, because they'll find all sorts of interesting ways not to pay you (or to delay payment for months at a time)
contractor work should be more fun expensive in general
Factor in an additional 30% BARE MINIMUM over your "hourly" FT rate to cover SE tax, benefits, bonus and full burden. IMO.
Good post and I would add in - factor in utilization / downtime, any OH expenses needed to perform / administer work (that won't be provided for or covered by other remuneration forms).