Employed/Freelance Advice Please.

Porridge19

Hi,

I am employed 25 hours p/w by 4 different employers.  I really want and need to work more hours and I have been offered a position for a couple of hours a week that would have to be self-employed.  Can you help me to figure out whether this would be worth my while and the pros and cons of doing this?

Ideally I'd like to work between 30-35 hours p/w so I have been thinking that as I would need to buy public liability insurance for the new position then maybe I could just make up my hours by finding more freelance work to build up my hours.

I hope this makes sense.
I feel daunted by becoming a sole trader for some reason. I'm in my early 50s and have always worked for an employer.

Any feedback would be appreciated. 

Savvy_Sue

The key thing to remember when you're self employed is that you need to charge enough to make up for
No paid leave
No employer pension contributions (only working a few hours per employer may mean you're not getting these anyway, but still)
No paid sick leave

So you need to charge more than you'd expect to be paid than an employer.

But if you can't increase your employed hours, then it may well work, especially if it's something you can fit in as and when.

But, is there a market for the self employed skills?

DullGreyGuy

Porridge19 said:

I am employed 25 hours p/w by 4 different employers.  I really want and need to work more hours and I have been offered a position for a couple of hours a week that would have to be self-employed.  Can you help me to figure out whether this would be worth my while and the pros and cons of doing this?

Ideally I'd like to work between 30-35 hours p/w so I have been thinking that as I would need to buy public liability insurance for the new position then maybe I could just make up my hours by finding more freelance work to build up my hours.

I hope this makes sense.
I feel daunted by becoming a sole trader for some reason. I'm in my early 50s and have always worked for an employer.

Any feedback would be appreciated. 

"Worth my while" is a very personal question and different people will give different answers depending on their circumstances, preferences, skills, interests etc. 

My wife used to do handmade children's products, she sold a reasonable amount but when you added up all the time she dedicated to it, materials, other costs and the amount of revenue she was receiving she was effectively working for circa £2/hr. Personally working 40hrs/week for £80 isnt worth it to me but she enjoyed doing it, she loved the feedback from happy customers and she'd still be making stuff even if it was unpaid. 


Being a sole trader isnt too difficult in principle, just make sure you put aside the money for the tax man as you earn it, know many who've gotten into a mess because they dipped into their tax money for a Xmas present or such and then the downward spiral starts. 

Outside of that just remember you have no employment rights, no sick pay, no redundancy, no holidays, no pension. Your hourly/day rate needs to be sufficient to make up for all these things and cover your running costs (eg insurance). There are plenty out there that will offer little more than NMW (perfectly legal for a self employed person) which in reality is much lower than NMW when you consider the gaps. 

It can however be very lucrative, in my line of work contractors are typically full time engagements on good day rates. A friend works in another sector and whilst rates are lower its typically part time work and he manages to get more or less as many hours a week as he wants/needs including above full time hours (he's an hour rate contractor)

LITRG

Hello. We are the Low Incomes Tax Reform Group (LITRG), part of the Chartered Institute of Taxation who are an educational charity. We are not part of HMRC or MSE. Although we can’t give individual advice, you might find our self employment guide useful: https://www.litrg.org.uk/working/self-employment/self-employment-guide. If you require further help, we recommend that you contact a tax adviser, HMRC or one of the tax charities where relevant. You can find more information about where to get help with tax here: https://www.litrg.org.uk/tax-nic/getting-help-tax. Thanks.

Porridge19

Thanks so much for all of your replies. 

@Savvy_Sue I work 15 hours p/w as an admin assistant for one employer ( I get employer pension contributions here). For the rest of the hours I work as a support worker and it's this work that I have been offered a self-employed role and there are more clients that require self-employed support workers.

@DullGreyGuy thanks for the information. I don't have any outlay other than public liability insurance.  I think the thing that worries me is being both an employee and self-employed and what the tax situation would be. I imagine it being complicated, but that's because I've never done it and I tend to overthink things!

I think perhaps I should just give it a go and see how it works out.

DullGreyGuy

Porridge19 said:

Thanks so much for all of your replies. 

Savvy_Sue I work 15 hours p/w as an admin assistant for one employer ( I get employer pension contributions here). For the rest of the hours I work as a support worker and it's this work that I have been offered a self-employed role and there are more clients that require self-employed support workers.

DullGreyGuy thanks for the information. I don't have any outlay other than public liability insurance.  I think the thing that worries me is being both an employee and self-employed and what the tax situation would be. I imagine it being complicated, but that's because I've never done it and I tend to overthink things!

I think perhaps I should just give it a go and see how it works out.

It's not overly complicated, a sole trader does an annual tax return thats intended to be done by you yourself. It will contain your employee income and taxes, your self employed revenue and expenses, any interest from bank accounts etc and they then tell you how much tax you owe (or are owed back). For a crude calculation just add your profit onto your salary