Over the past few years, the number of IT contractor umbrella companies within the industry has grown rapidly. Now, a new umbrella comparison site - Umbrella Supermarket - has been launched to help contractors choose from a bewildering array of umbrella offerings.

UmbrellaSupermarket.com has a unique voting system to allow contractors to give their opinion on their Umbrella company.

The site includes a chat board where the only rule is 'there's no such thing as a stupid question'. Additionally, every umbrella company is mystery shopped at least once a month, and the results are reported online. The site is primarily a resource for contractors, but it is also being used by a large number of recruitment agents who may prefer to refer their clients to the site rather than developing relationships with "preferred suppliers".

We spoke to Peter Warren from Umbrella Supermarket. We asked him what he hoped to achieve from the new site:

"If we achieve just one thing it would be for Umbrella companies as a whole to be recognised and respected as legitimate professional suppliers of services to independent contractors. Most of the industry already see this, though there remains a small hard-core of those who look down their noses at the Umbrella option with this almost imperialist snobbish attitude - the type of person who will only use a fountain pen because they don't think brio's are any good! Wake up guys, and recognise the benefits of Umbrellas - you'll be pleasantly surprised!"

With scores of umbrella companies on the market now, we asked Mr. Warren what he believed is the biggest problem within the umbrella industry at the moment:

"The Umbrella industry suffers from one big problem - and that is the insistence of a handful of the newer, less confident Umbrella companies to sell their service based on 'Expenses'. This is a nonsense, all legitimate Umbrella companies can offer exactly the same levels of Expenses, no company can offer more than another - but it does attract a certain type of contractor who doesn't know any better. It seems to me this is really a fault of their marketing department being lazy, more than anything else. But I've witnessed a remarkable change over the past 7 years, and am delighted that the better Umbrella companies now concentrate on far more valid strategies like superb customer service levels. We plan to get those last few companies who still sell on Expenses - name & shame them!"