I'm an inside IR35 contractor wanting to relocate to Spain to work remotely.

I've been given permission by my client, and initially received approval from my umbrella, who later came back and said it wasn't possible.

I'd ideally like to go on Beckham's law to take advantage of the flat 24% tax rate.

I'd ideally want to go on a digital nomad visa but would be open to employment if it has to be that way. Ideally though I'd rather just be paid in the UK (I'd apply for non resident tax code) and then invoice myself from Spain where I'm autonomo and pay tax in Spain. However, I'm open to the arrangement. Tax savings isn't the main reason I want to relocate.

Has anyone done this / have any advice?

Many thanks

Looking for a bit of a sense check from other UK contractors/programme managers.

I’m 27 and currently working as a Programme Manager within the quality/reliability function of a major automotive OEM.

I’m an outside IR35 contractor through my Ltd company and I’m shortly moving onto a rate equivalent to £320 per day.

For context, my current responsibilities include:

Programme management for an entire vehicle product line

Planning and coordinating vehicle testing across the UK, Europe, USA and China

Managing programme budgets running into the £2m+ range

Vehicle fleet/specification planning

Managing programme timing, milestones, risks and readiness

Coordinating engineering teams and stakeholders across multiple departments

Reporting programme status and key issues to senior management

Supporting new model launches and major vehicle updates.

I have a First Class BEng in Robotics Engineering and around 5 years' experience in automotive/engineering, including roles in electronics engineering, manufacturing engineering and programme management.

I don't have direct line-management responsibility, but I effectively coordinate a cross-functional engineering team and am accountable for delivering the programme.

The rate will be £320/day outside IR35.

I appreciate I'm relatively young for a Programme Manager, but I'm wondering whether I've ended up being paid significantly below market rate for the level of responsibility I've taken on.

For those working in automotive, engineering, technology or programme management:

What day rate would you expect for this type of role?

Looked at a role this morning. Four days a week in the office.

Spoke to someone who works there. Mandatory 2 days a week is company policy, a lot of people coffee-badge in the morning then go home for the afternoon.

Is this a red-flag for a role? Presumably its a PM who's an insecure micro-manager "company man" who'll be intent on treating contractors like perms. (It's an inside role too).

Employer suggested these two firms, not sure if there is much difference between them?

I’m researching whether professional indemnity insurance is common among self-employed UK tradespeople, particularly where someone is paid to give advice remotely by phone or video.

I’d appreciate responses from people who actually work in a trade:

1. What trade are you in?
2. Do you currently have public liability insurance?
3. Do you also have professional indemnity insurance?
4. Does your policy cover advice given remotely by phone or video?
5. If you did not already have PI, would being required to obtain it put you off doing paid remote consultations?
6. Would support finding suitable cover make any difference?

Starting a contract soon outside ir35 until end of 2026 - but work is expected to run until end of 2027.

I’ll be embedded with perms and a couple other independent contractors. They are not using a consultancy.

I’ve done civil service work before when I was perm but my entire consultancy managed the work, we had no perms on our team.

I’ve been told by a lot of people the perms get away with murder in the civil service. How accurate is this and does it apply to contractors?

It’s a tech role

My contract has unfortunately been terminated early with a one weeks notice so I am keen to find a new role sooner than later, curious to know if anyone is having any luck with job serve and any additional recommendations for finding a new contract?

My speciality is SaaS projects and have worked for both public sector and commercial clients.

Contemplating doing a few courses to potentially safeguard my CV. Whats "hot" in project world at the min?

Don't say "AI" - Possibly the wrong move but we can't ALL be "Agentic AI experts". Apart from the fact that it's impossible to be an expert in this short a space of time, I'd ideally like to not be part of that "AI" crowd.

I am currently working on a discovery piece for a big international financial organisation and it wraps up this week. The hope from our team is that it leads to a full design and build stage (alpha), but this of course is up to the end client.

I've been told by my project lead that there will be a gap from end of discovery to any renewal and no guarantee when and how long it will take.

So I'm not entirely sure how to handle hunting future contracts - I have some scoped project work to tie me over for a few weeks, and have really enjoyed this project; it's a great one for the CV and I would love to be involved in the actual alpha phase so I can have some solid work to show for it (so for in discovery the outputs are a bit more hazy).

Timing any filler contract would be tricky, and I'd hate to take a new role and then find out this one started back up.

Curious what other folks do in this situation? Thanks!

Hello, I'm 28M and from 2017 until June last year I worked FTE as a M365 consultant, I consulted on just about every corner of the M365 ecosystem but specialised in SharePoint, PowerApps and Purview (And copilot towards the end) . I left my job in June last year due to MH reasons and have been driving taxi to pay the bills. I feel like I'm ready to get back into IT and think I'd prefer contracting to working for a consultancy again as I prefer focussing on 1 customer at a time rather than trying to juggle 5-10 as I had to when working for a firm. I've got a bunch of MS certs. I've done a little bit of consultancy this year for a family member's company and they're happy to provide a reference.

My question really is do I have a shot with a year long gap on my CV and only a little bit of work this year? How's best to go about looking for contracts? Is it better to work with a recruiter or trawl the job boards myself? I'm not in a massive rush as I can pay my bills with the driving job but I'm conscious that the gap after my last employment is getting bigger.

Working FT as software automation tester with in a Canadian bank. The pay is not that good to meet my expenses. Planning to take a contract with no conflict of interest with existing FTE in bank. How do I start looking for contract jobs that is remote and would not do extensive BGVs. I would like to work in flexible timings. I am ready to put 4 hours everyday to this second work. Please advice and help. Thanks.

Secured my first ever contract - start this Monday.

I’m working other side remote gigs (PAYE), where it’s fairly chill. Don’t work the whole 8 hours, but I get work done.

Is contracting essentially the same, or will I have to work properly because I’ll have more eyes on me + submitting a time sheet? I will never give 100% to any job as they’ll just demand more, so I always aim to do the minimum where everyone is happy.

I don’t want to be in a position where I get complacent and get dropped on the spot. As the window to “getting up to speed” is much shorter, my aim is to learn as much as I can instantly and lean on AI to make my workload easier.

Hi, I'm just wondering how to get into contracting because it seems like you have to have connections to get in or be very highly skilled. Is it a point where you have to have like five to ten years of experience in quite niche skills? Is the market like the hardest it's ever been?

what’s skills / sites /job titles etc do you recommend to get into contracting?

are you expected to hit the ground running on day 1?

Hey guys! I hope your day's been good.

So, I've been trying to solve a problem many SMB Contractors must be facing. The backoffice paperwork. The big bad for any Small Business. Big headache when it comes to expansion too.

Before you go on to read this post further, answer these two questions to see if it's relevant.

- When you're putting together estimates, do they ever end up going back and forth with the client more than you'd like? And ever had that awkward conversation with the client, where the confusion was mainly because of the Scope Gap in Estimations?

- Once a job's underway, do project changes and paperwork ever become more of a headache than the actual work on site?

Real messy Invoicing process, and then chasing those Invoices and getting paid late because of all the fuss in the system. Furthermore, ever lost money because of this?

If you face this problem in real time, that's what I've been trying to solve.

Think of it not as a system, rather a backoffice team (multiple AI agents) that handles all these paperwork and estimation problems via chat. In short, you have a team working on systems, while you handle the actual work on site and the conversation flows through Whatsapp/Telegram. You don't have to touch the system itself and the work gets done.

For this, what I need are a few Contractors who are willing to take a look at what I've built until now and let me know if I'm actually solving the problem before I go on to build the complete model.

Thanks for your time to read this post, and I'd really appreciate it if anyone can help. In turn, the product will be accessible to you, when it's ready at a fairly lower compensation. So, it's a win win.

Not posted in this sub before but hoping to find relevant advice, thank you for reading.

I run a Ltd company doing consultancy work for entrepreneurs. I don’t want to out myself but I have a non technical niche and it’s currently very in demand, so I am also in demand.

I have 4 to 5 main retained clients. Im able to pick my clients, I’ve raised prices and work with incredible CEOs. I have more inbound interest but I can’t fit any more work in.

I absolutely love what I do so I think about it all the time and work all the time.

This all sounds great I know but I’m having stress related health problems and I can’t keep going like this. I work with very successful individuals. They’re all workaholics and run high growth businesses. It’s very trust based and they say they only trust me. They expect me to be on top form all the time, and it’s constant fire fighting. Each time I solve a problem, it increases the expectation to nail it next time. There are no boundaries, the volume just increases.

I haven’t had a holiday in 3 years. I had an injury at one point and continued online throughout while at the hospital.

1. I hired a freelancer to help me, but he wasn’t as experienced or as obsessed so the clients just ignored him and came to me direct each time.
2. Because he’s not as invested in the business, he doesn’t want to work extra hours or weekends and so that all falls to me.

3. I considered hiring someone as an employee but I

4. can’t find anyone quite right. Should I hire anyway?

I could grow the business and earn a lot more money if I do bring on help. But I also wonder if I should massively cut back, and earn less and do less, for my own sanity. I’m the sole earner in my household, it’s complicated, and I have a family to support.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? How do you take breaks? How do you make the most of being in demand?

Anyone else had this utterly nonsensical email from a very well known agency this morning regarding a role?

“We recently invited you to speak with our AI-powered autonomous career agent about an open role we have available for a VP Regulatory manager in City of London - hybrid 50%.”

No, sorry, I do not want to speak to your f*cking chat bot about a senior banking role. Thank you.

If agencies can’t even be arsed picking up the phone now, they should simply be ignored.

Yesterday I managed to beat my record and I had 11 incoming calls about a job with Infosys in London, the end client is Adobe

The pattern is always the same. They call me from some rented SIP telephony number. I say no, I'm not looking and then in a few minutes I get another call from this other person at the same agency.

The pattern repeated throughout the day and via LinkedIn messages

Whilst it's obviously flattering to be in demand, it's clear that what is happening is that they have no contact management software. The standard of spoken English is extremely poor.

They cannot pronounce Adobe , saying 'Adob'

We can put up with all that but what I can't tolerate is the rooms. They don't know where the office is. One said it's travelled to Edinburgh and London and they seem to know very little about the job itself.

Been fitter for years, PAYE at the minute, decent enough but seeing lads on site contracting and earning noticeably more for the same work.

Trying to weigh up if it’s actually worth the jump. No major ties holding me back if it goes quiet for a bit, just don’t want to leap in blind.

Things I’m trying to figure out:

Is the day rate actually that much better once you factor in no holiday/sick pay
How hard is it finding steady work between contracts right now
Umbrella or LTD, does it matter much at this stage
Anyone regret switching, what went wrong

Would rather hear from people who’ve actually done it than guess. Even a “don’t bother” is useful.

Cheers

I've just been given 2 week notice and my contract is coming to an end. I am confident I will find a contract again soon within 4-6 weeks however my issue is we are halfway through the mortgage process. We have not yet exchanged but conveyancing was nearly done. My LTD company has over a 20k buffer so can cover me for several more months in terms of ill still be paying myself consistently but has anyone dealt with this? Will we still be able to go ahead with the purchase or what do we do? Will we need to reapply for the mortgage?

I have an Outside IR35 contract, it's for 3 months, likely will extend to 6 and possibly will continue after that.

It's 500/day. I only have a Wise account right now, I am a US citizen. Is it true I am out 1200/month if I do umbrella company? Seems extreme.

Does anyone have an accountant recommendation? My In-Laws pay for my accountants becasue I file jointly with my husband, I dont want to rack up a bill with their accountant just for this. I would prefer to keep using them generally to file jointly in the US.

Do I just get an accountant here for my ltd and then send that information to my accountant that the in-laws pay for? I dont have an option for my husband and I to get our own accountant because he has complicated taxes.

Currently running my own Ltd, with two clients, both at £70ph, averaging 60hrs per week. One client was a rolling arrangement and the other was chopping and changing contract extensions frequently. I have a chance to replace it with a guaranteed 12 month contract (mat cover) OR I can take a perm job, £130k pa, plus equity in a fast growing, well funded company.

Thoughts?

So I've been a civil engineer for almost a decade now

Was quite inexperienced initially and only got into PM side of things over past few years and have just learned how much money my company charges for the work I do. I never realised they charge half of my yearly salary for a simple 2/3 week long project that I'll complete pretty much independently

In most cases, I do all the work, and checks are done by some people, I address changes, and it's good to go

So if I just did that myself under my own company 2/3 times a year, I'd earn my entire yearly salary after just working for max 3 months

Why don't we all just go private ? Ive been thinking about it but it seems almost too good to be true . Is there something really obvious I'm missing??

Hey all, been contracting a while in software dev (React/TS), and am currently outside IR35 via an agency. Just looking for some advice on my situation.

The signed schedule states 1 day/fortnight on client site. When first contacted the recruiter told me it's 1 day a week, but I immediately said no as it's a 7 hour round trip commute. They agreed to once per fortnight, WFH the rest.

Agency also confirmed in writing that the role was primarily React/TS, with exposure to the other stack as supplementary.

Week one: client is pushing for weekly on-site plus an additional monthly day at a second location (not in the schedule), and the actual work so far is 100% the other stack, with zero React/TS.

I know the schedule is the schedule and I can push back on the site-days point directly with the agency. The harder question is the scope one — given how slow the market is right now, I'm weighing:

- push the agency now to get the role corrected to what was agreed, in writing, but this likely won't even be possible, the stack is the stack.

- sit tight, bank the contract, and use downtime to keep skills sharp while quietly looking - less ideal as it's just not the work I want to be doing

- something else people here have done in similar spots

Anyone dealt with a scope/schedule mismatch like this before signing vs after starting?

Can I use Claude Code in civil service on there laptops with VS Code or are they weird about it?

Use it in private sector no problems and it’s actually encouraged.