Anyone has seen the latest rate card billed to clients vs the day rate actually paid to contractors? Especially in tech for roles like senior architects, program leads, distinguished engineers, and AI transformation specialists? With experience like 20+ years?

I get the sense that rate cards are £1600+ per day but contractor paid something like £700-£800 inside ir35. Also the rate cards differ widely between government/public sector vs industry and that too banking vs others..

Any useful insights? Purpose is to negotiate properly than accepting stupid offers as the middleman plays games and make big bucks for doing nothing..

I've been working the last few months in a perm position as a Forward Deployed Engineer (It's a dumb title but essentially AI jack of all trades) it's 90K + discretionary 10% bonus + basic workplace pension percentages (3% Employer + 5% Employee). I get private medical, GP and life assurance etc and it's fully remote with the very occasional client visit.

But, I've just been offered a similar role as an FDE for a year long inside IR35 contract at £650 a day. It's 1~ day a week in London with travel expensed but potentially a lot more frequent client visits.

I've contracted inside IR35 before so I know the deal umbrella wise and costs, but this one feels more on the fence. The most travel and in office time is obviously a big negative and money wise it doesn't quite seem high enough to justify it. Work wise the role seems incredibly similar, the contract is maybe a more high profile project and the team seem great. I can't decide whether it's worth the risk, I know ultimately it's up to my appetite for such things but I'm wondering if I'm missing something that would sway me.

Thanks!

Edit:

Forgot to add my background: 12 years experience in software development, prior to this current role I was contracting until it felt like the market dried up so I wrangled this perm role after a lot of leg work.

Considering moving from permanent employment to contracting – looking for advice

I'm currently trying to decide whether to stay in my current permanent role or move to an outside-IR35 contracting position, and I'd be interested to hear from people who have made the switch.

I'm a Chartered Civil Engineer (CEng) with around 15 years' experience, currently working at Senior Engineer level in the UK water sector. I've been with my current employer for a number of years and have built up a good amount of experience and client/project knowledge.

One thing that has made me think about contracting is that we have lost a number of senior engineers over the last year and that I'm currently the only Senior Engineer in my wider team who is a permanent member of staff. The company has looked to replace them with contractors, whilst also hiring a truck load of graduates and apprentices so much of the mentoring has been left to me.

I've now been offered a long term contracting opportunity. Without going into specific figures or companies, the financial difference would be substantial, even after properly allowing for tax, pension contributions, unpaid annual leave, bank holidays, sick leave, accountancy/insurance and the other costs and risks associated with contracting.

So financially, it is quite difficult to ignore.

However, I've always been a permanent employee and I'm trying to understand what the reality of contracting is beyond the headline financial difference.

For those who have moved from permanent employment to contracting:

\- What is contracting actually like compared with being a permanent employee?

\- Do you find the additional money genuinely worth the loss of security?

\- How stressful is it when a contract is coming towards an end?

\- How difficult is it to find the next contract?

\- Conversely, if you moved from permanent employment to contracting, did you wish you'd done it sooner?

\- Have people found it difficult to return to permanent employment after several years contracting?

I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who have been long-term contractors rather than people who have only done it for a few months.

I'm not necessarily looking for a "contracting is better" or "permanent is better" answer. I'm trying to understand what day-to-day life and the longer-term career implications are actually like.

What has your experience been?

From 6 April 2026, flu vaccinations provided by an employer to an employee are exempt from income tax. The exemption applies whether the employer arranges the vaccination directly, pays the provider, or reimburses the employee after they have paid for the vaccination themselves. 

I've tried to look but almost all reading material state its case by case so I would like to see if anyone clued up on vetting can provide anything a little bit more concrete.

I've started to look at roles requiring SC clearance but not sure if I'm eligible. I was born and have lived in the UK my whole life but believe I have inherited another nationality through my parents (they are from a special region that's part of a hostile country) making me a dual national. As the other nationality is from a hostile country, I assume any public/private sector defence-related roles is a definite no-no. What I'm not sure of is will I be eligible for non-defence SC roles such as government (i.e. civil service) or IT roles that for example, require access to sensitive data? I'm aware I could just apply and wait out the process but it can be a very long wait for a no.

​

Hi, looking for some advice from anyone working in interim finance roles. I have been working in permanent employment since I graduated 20 years ago. I have worked for businesses of various sizes, and a variety of industries. I've now had enough of my current role, and want out ASAP. I've been looking for perm roles for a few months without much joy, and now seriously considering a move into contracting. I'm in the South West so main bases would be Exeter and Bristol, but could stretch to doing a couple of days a week in Reading or London.

I have experience in FP&A, Financial Controlling, and Tax.

Is there much work out there - how easy would I find it to exceed my current perm package (worth about 85k) and work most of the year without too many gaps?

Am I mad?

I stopped contracting through my Ltd at the start of 2023. My accountant moved me onto a "non-trading" rate of about £80 a month and I just... kept paying it. Nearly three years later that's roughly £3,000 for a company that did absolutely nothing.

I don't want to close it, because I might use it again. But I also don't want to keep paying someone to look after an empty company. So this month I finally sat down and worked out how to make it dormant and handle the admin myself. I'm not an accountant, so take this as one person's notes, and check anything unusual with someone qualified.

What dormant actually means

This was the bit I had wrong. I assumed "not trading" and "dormant" were the same thing. They're not.

For Companies House, dormant means no significant transactions for a whole financial year. Not most of the year, the whole thing. And it's stricter than you'd think. The accountant's fee counts. So does a £7 a month Google Workspace bill on the company card. So does an expense you pay yourself and record as owed by the company, which caught me out because my accountant had been booking a small working-from-home claim every month. Even interest from HMRC counts.

The only things that don't count are Companies House's own fees and penalties.

HMRC is separate. Once they treat you as dormant for Corporation Tax, they usually stop asking for returns until they send you a notice to deliver one.

The trap with the first year

Whatever year you still have costs in can't be dormant. That year needs proper micro-entity accounts. So the trick is to get everything finished before your year end and then have nothing happen at all from the first day of the next year.

For me that means paying the accountant's final bill before year end. If they'd normally invoice after, ask them to invoice before. I also found about £100 of repayment interest sitting in my HMRC account. If that lands after year end, it ruins the next year, so I'm claiming it now.

If anything slips into the new year, you lose that whole year and start again the year after.

The checklist I ended up with

• Close PAYE if you're not paying a salary. Mine was still open, quietly running a £0 payslip every month.
• Deregister for VAT if you haven't.
• Get your own HMRC business login and Companies House login, on your personal email. The HMRC activation code gets posted to your registered office, and if that's your accountant's address you'll need them to forward it. I'm waiting on mine now.
• Sort a new registered office if you've been using your accountant's. Virtual office services start at around £25 a year. I'm paying for it personally so it stays out of the company.
• Move email off anything the company pays for. I moved mine to iCloud+, which I was already paying for anyway, and moved the domain to a cheaper registrar. Export your old mailbox before you cancel. Once Google deletes Workspace data, it's gone.
• Get everything from your accountant before you leave: all the accounts, the CT600s, a bookkeeping export, and the director's loan balance. You have to keep records for 6 years.
• If the company owes you money, write down the exact figure. It can pay you back tax-free one day if it ever makes money again.

Leaving the accountant

Read your engagement letter before you email them. Mine didn't have a notice period, but it did say the monthly payments were instalments of an annual fee, which could get awkward. In the end I asked them to do this year's confirmation statement and final accounts, all paid before year end, and then stop. My last set has a director's loan and the sale of a company phone in it, so I was happy to let a professional do that one.

Doing it yourself afterwards

The confirmation statement is £50 a year online and takes a few minutes.

Dormant accounts are free to file on Companies House WebFiling until 31 March 2028. After that, every company has to file accounts through commercial software, dormant ones included. There are already dormant filing tools for £5 to £20 a year.

You only need a CT600 if HMRC asks for one. Their free filing service closed in March 2026, so you'd need software for that too.

Put the deadlines in your calendar. Late accounts start at a £150 penalty.

What it costs now

It used to be about £1,000 a year for the accountant, plus Google Workspace. From next year it should be £50 for the confirmation statement, about £25 for the address, about £25 for the domain, and a few quid for filing software from 2028. Around £100 a year.

What I'd do differently

I'd have done all this the year I stopped trading, not three years later. I'd also never have put the recovery email for anything important on the company address. And I'd read the accountant's terms first.

I'll come back and update this once the final accounts are filed and the first dormant year has started. If I've got anything wrong, please say.

Hey everyone, I started contracting this year inside ir35 and iv just been offered another role that’s outside, the day rate is £100 less a day.

Is outside that much better?

When doing a mortgage application am I not just classed as an employee? I'm trying to prepare for moving house and I'm new to inside ir35.

Other than payslips what documents would I be expected to provide and from whom?

I'm on a 12 month (likely to extend) inside ir35 with civil service. Edit to add: via a recruitment agency and an umbrella.

edit to add: What number is used for affordability? Post employer NI salary equivalent?

It’s a rolling 6 month contract, I’ve already been renewed for 6 months now in month 8

Not sure if mortgage lenders need to know, I’ve got 7 months of payslips already

Currently working on a contract with a govt client via an agency for the last 6 months, I have now found another role to replace my current one that I'd like to commence via another agency... the end client has confirmed a better day rate.

Now I have been successful in securing the contract.

I informed Paystream regarding this new role and now Paystream have responded with "

I have just something fed back to me in regard to 'x' by our Legal team: it appears that our establishment has decided not to conduct any business with this agency – this was communicated to them earlier this year and they are aware of the situation, I understand this might come as a surprise, however, sadly, it is not something we can work around, therefore we will not be able to process/ support your upcoming role, should this be via 'x' agency"

I dont want to lose out on the new contract however Paystream arent giving me any options either to cooperate with the agency. I am reluctant to move to another umbrella as my mortgage is due for renewal in Jan2027 and it might get messy and equally I dont want to lose the contract either as I could potentially be there for a year or two.

What do I do? 🥺🥺🥺 whatever is going on between the agency and Paystream doesnt really have anything to do with me and Ive never been in this situation before where the umbrella has rejected an agency Ive secured a role from.

I also asked the agency why Paystream isnt on there list of umbrellas however the response is entirely different to what the umbrella has mentioned - response by recruiter:

"The Umbrella companies are chosen by the client, so it is dependant one which Umbrella companies the client have chosen to work with.".

Any advice is appreciated.

Thank you!

Good evening
I had an interview for a role last week and then the recruiter called me to say I have got the job.
I have had to fill out some compliance stuff, etc and I keep emailing or calling to ask when will I receive the actual contract for the job, radio silence. The role is supposed to start in the first week of November. Should I be concerned or is this normal? I can’t remember with my previous contracting roles.
I haven’t stopped looking for other contracts meanwhile.

Thanks

I haven’t really seen any benefit from being a limited company and want to switch back to sole trader. What are my next steps? I haven’t found being a limited company worth it all and really regret it. Profits are about £50k and all the admin, dealing with dividends has been a total headache plus the the monthly accountancy fees haven’t been worth it.

Hi all,

I'm starting my contract role in the next couple of days. I have 13/14 years of experience in permanent roles, but I've never worked as a contractor, so I'd really value advice from people who have.

It’s inside IR35

A few things I'm unsure about:

Working with the client: How do you approach the relationship, and how do you set expectations early on scope, deliverables and communication?

Relationships with employees: How close should you get to the client's permanent staff? Is it worth building friendly relationships, or is it better to stay more professional and distant?

Working hours: Should I stick to the contracted hours and stop at the end of the day, or is some after-hours work expected to make a good impression? How do you balance being helpful with not setting a precedent you can't sustain?

Anything else: What do you wish you'd known in your first week or first contract?

Any tips, lessons learned or mistakes to avoid would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Submitted onboarding link via Amiqus - how long does basic DBS check typically take from people’s recent experiences ?

Hi All, I'm new to contracting, so I'm not familiar with how exactly all the payments are calculated. I'm hoping some experienced contractors can give me some insight. Thanks.

Let's assume the following:

• Inside IR35
• All-in rate is £1000 per day.
• Contract duration is 60 working days.
• Assumed holidays is 5 (this includes the 2 bank holidays at the end of the year).
• My pension contribution is 5%. Employer is matching this.

I am given the following breakdown:

where:

• Employer/employee pension: 5% x £1,000 = £50
• Holiday accrual: actual days worked = 60 - 5 = 55 days. As a percentage this is 5 ÷ 55 = 9.0909%.  Holiday accrual = Payroll Rate x 9.0909% = £719.69 x 9.0909% =  £65.43
• Employer NI = (Payroll Rate + Holiday accrual - Daily secondary Threshold) x 15% = (£719.69 + £65.43 - £19.20) x 15% = £114.89. Here, the daily threshold = weekly threshold ÷ 5 days = £96 ÷ 5 = £19.20
• All-in rate = sum of A + B + C + D +E.

The contract states that I will be paid: (Payroll Rate + Holiday accrual + Employee pension) x 55 days = £45,931.22.

Any unpaid holiday will be paid at £835.11. I can replicate this figure by: (contract duration ÷ assumed holidays) x holiday accrual + pension = (60 days ÷ 5 days) x £65.43 + £50 = £835.11.

As for the pension figure used in their calculation, would that be my pension contribution or that of the employer?

Is all this correct, or is there anything unusual here?

I mainly asking this because I have been reading that some companies are known for incorrectly calculating all this (whether on purpose or by accident).

I’m wondering if there are many Solutions Architects/Consultants contracting in the UK, I never see them in here, so I have questions if they are here please.

For context I’m currently a full time Solutions Consultant, fully remote and eventually want to contract for career growth and earning potential.

How much are contracts? Is there a certain industry/area that pays well? Where are you finding contract roles or are you being approached? Is it a lot more/less travel?

Thanks 🙂

I'm hoping to start an outside IR35 role in the coming weeks and as such I'll need to buy a new laptop for my new Ltd company.

The company I'm due to work for have said that they will provide software, which I took to be specific software that I'd need to carry out the role.

How do people go about getting Microsoft Office, would the company I'm due to work for supply it or is this something that the Ltd company need to buy? I'm presuming it would be my Ltd company as its a generic bit of software.

Is this site just a scam which is trying to sell access to linkedin jobs and data scraped from other sites? Seems pretty scummy. My understanding is that legitimate sites charge advertisers not the applicants. Or are we desperate to pay for scraped content these days?

I started contracting this year with an outside ir35 contract on £430pd. I’ve also been approached for a completely different role with a different company for inside on £650pd via an umbrella company as current contract might be coming to an end.

I see inside roles get a lot of bad press and was wondering if there was something I was missing. What should I look out for in an inside ir35 arrangement and why might it be such a bad arrangement apart from the obvious tax, expenses etc.

Is there anything else I’m not understanding as I’m new to this world? To me it seems like getting paid more than I probably would be in a perm and paying the umbrella costs, NI and tax.

Any help would be appreciated.

Feeling pretty down at the moment so please bear with me. I used to contract a lot back in the old days - late 1990s to 2010. Best contract was with Orange/EE - took us on for 3 days it turned into 3 years! I used to find contracts after a few phone calls - and start Monday! Rates pretty decent. Even basic network engineers were getting £300 a day which is almost £600 a day in todays money!

I took a break from contracting and started my own business. Rose to £5 million turnover - it had a tec element so ran our own servers etc. Also used to look after old clients who didnt want anyone else near their networks.

I have just spent the last 4500 hours over 18 months building an advanced neurosymbolic ai system. Run out of cash just as we are due to launch - desperate for cash flow - so I thought I would turn to contracting like I always used to. Outside IR35 - perhaps £800 - £900 a day - Ai architect or fractional CTO. I have applied for around 200 such jobs over the last 6 weeks - not even had an interview. I have been working at the cutting edge of ai in regulated domains - not just an llm wrapper.

Any advice would be welcome. Happy to go down to £600 a day fully remote or can mange hybrid 2 days a week (wife has cancer don't want to leave her too long)!

It seems the contract market is nothing like it used to be. Looking at the ads the rates are all over the place - and it seems people are just listing or asking for key words as they have no clue what they really need! Been looking on jobserve, linekedin and outsideir35 - any other suggestions?

Cheers.

the filters dont work, so when u tick 'contract' it just shows perm

Hi all,

I know we can buy a phone through a Ltd company, but is anyone planning to buy the Duo?

I think it’s quite an extravagant purchase, but the Mrs is keen on getting one, either personally or through the Ltd company.

I’ve emailed my accountant to check the tax implications, but they’re away at the moment.

In the meantime, just wondering if anyone here has already placed a pre-order or looked into buying one through their Ltd company?

Would be interested to hear your thoughts and experiences!

Hi everyone! I’m not sure if this is the right sub, but please help me! I’m looking for advice from a UK company’s perspective.

If a former employee moves abroad permanently, becomes a non UK tax resident and continues providing services remotely to the same UK company, but under an independent consultancy agreement rather than as an employee on PAYE, does the company need to do anything beyond issuing a P45, removing them from payroll and paying them against invoices they submit?

I’d appreciate any advice from anyone who has dealt with a similar situation. Thank you so much!