Contracting News

IR35, umbrella regulation and Single Worker Status. Labour puts it all off until tomorrow, so it can keep its promise to the masses today.

The early bird catches the worm. Or does it? Harvey Nash answers for ContractorUK.

Autumn Budget’s bung on tech staff hiring is being shored up by the Employment Rights bill and Industrial Strategy.

Despite now being blocked, the voice of rugby’s outside IR35 attempt passes on key lessons for tackling the hypothetical contract’s complexity.

What will make government happy on October 30th will make UK homeowners happy, too. At least that’s the theory.

Contractors, have you got a substitution policy document, outlining how the supply chain would deal with you enacting your RoS?

The latest public sector IR35 bill is pretty swingeing -- but the overall trend suggests public sector bodies are getting to grips with the OPW rules, after seven long years.

It’s clear HMRC has learnt from its enforcement work in the public sector, before HS2 and as a direct result of it. Don’t leave your own learnings to the last.

The taxman’s ‘naming and shaming’ just passed a major milestone, mirroring ‘increasing concern about umbrella supply chains.’

Maybe the contractor industry should just take the hint, because despite a Green Paper back in 2022, SWS appears to have gone missing -- for now.

The unknown of October 30th and an opaque Employment Rights Bill are keeping IT 'recruitment and investment plans on hold.'

The CV & Interview Advisors previews its Thursday webinar on how to find contracts that are both unadvertised and high-paying.

One of the many wrongs of the Kiernan Hughes-Mason case is how candidate criminal history checks got characterised.

Tech job adverts specifying the pay in words, rather than numbers, aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.

Concerned for their wellbeing, Australia just gave employees a right to disconnect. Maybe the UK should do the same, but for its freelance consultants too.

Five bites of the cherry to get its subsistence expenses deductions approved have now failed for the brolly.

Four out of four advisers fear the smart money of Rachel Reeves’ first fiscal statement is on an increase to corporation tax for limited companies.

A former ‘best IT contractor recruitment agency’ talks of repositioning and restructuring, in wake of its profitability taking a ‘significant’ dent.

Better outcomes, value for money, and improved prospects. That, at least, is the three-fold pledge of the chancellor’s now-underway rethink on retirement savings.

Delays, a reluctant Revenue, and extra work for contractor accountants -- all things that a frank impact assessment of hiking the tax return threshold should have said.

Labour looks set to crackdown on CJRS fraud, meaning Laser Byte Ltd won’t be the last to get bitten in court by HMRC.

Taxman says seven avoidance schemes (all employment tax-related) should be avoided, even though contractors often have ‘little choice’ but to use them.

As able as it may be at causing belligerent responses, HMRC won’t be keyboard-warriored into changing procedure backed by statute.

The only certainty of the ‘will-she-won’t-she’ pensions raid furore is the wisdom in maxing out your allowance now, while it remains generous and intact.

Survey shows not even one in three contractors agree with what end-clients say matters most when workers contemplate a freelance tech role.

July’s REC Report on Jobs shows the ‘subdued’ IT contractor market, with a lack of confidence and renewals, as approaching a grim milestone.

A sceptical agent’s Excel test is a sign of things to come -- but don’t take it personally, our job is to work out if what you say about your skills is true.

The Growth & Skills Levy is one of a few steps in the right direction. Ministers understanding not everyone’s a permie is key to avoid taking us back to square one.

A rethink on limited company workers is underway by large and pragmatic end-users, even if it is still shy of a policy shift.

A tiered evolution of Mini-Umbrella Companies is here, with arrangements as opaque as the consequences for contractors who find themselves embroiled.

Engaging contractors inside IR35 might still be all the rage. Yet the economic impacts are very real, and may even be unsustainable.

AI bosses question the intelligence of canning a £1.3billion computing investment, aimed at keeping Britain out of the ‘tech slow lane.’

Treasury exchequer secretary James Murray is the new broom to sweep away the wrongs of Lucy Frazer and her rotten Tory government. And 131 parliamentarians are there to see that he does exactly that.

Freelancer and Contractor Services Association CEO Chris Bryce on what new chancellor Rachel Reeves should and shouldn’t unveil on October 30th.

Top advisers put UK IT contracting on warning, even as they call Labour to replace the Tories’ OPW rules with ‘old’ IR35 of 2000.

Software firm tells ContractorUK it gave free coffee and snacks to MSPs, cloud marketplaces and telcos, but not customers. Or at least it tried to.

Limited companies is where this new government should concentrate simplification efforts, because CT itself isn’t the problem.

A threshold increase in April has still probably not been taken advantage of by every eligible contractor on under £80k.

If the best time for the Tories to realise IR35 reform has been damaging was yesterday, the next best time is today -- as the opposition.

The Points of View presenter has his own point of view thrown out by the FTT, cueing up a full blown hearing into his IR35 status.