I'm currently in full-time employment, and quite happy where I am, but I set aside a certain number of hours each month to do pro-bono work for non-profits and/or Open Source projects as well as taking on freelance work - email me with your project details and how I may be able to help.

For freelance work, telecommute and/or per-incident work would be ideal - you don't need me taking up a desk, and you probably don't need me all of the time.

Please email me to make first contact: richard@mysqldba.co.uk - I tend to reject/ignore unsolicited contact when busy in order to concentrate on my work.

I am available on Skype (contact name: mysql_dba_uk) and Google Talk (username: mysqldbauk@googlemail.com - you will need to be authorised before you can send me IM messages). I have both a Twitter account (mysql_dba_uk) and a Facebook page (mysql_dba_uk), as well as a LinkedIn profile

Note for recruiters/employment agencies

I'm pretty happy with where I am right now - please don't bombard me with job offers unless they're really good. In particular, pay attention to the following points:

If just read 'database administrator' and put me forward for jobs using other RDBMSs, don't be surprised if I ignore you. Carry on doing it and I'll personally blacklist you and maybe even the agency you work for. Do some basic research - that's what you're paid to do.

I will not relocate - if it's more than an hour away from me, I'm not interested. Don't waste my time.

Contract work is okay, permanent better, telecommute best. I'm rarely anywhere near the DB servers I work on, so there's no real need for me to take up office space.