Looking for a bit of help from UK Contractors

tenrou

Hey,

I'm looking for a bit of help on the contracting front from someone in the UK. Basically I'm looking for what the necessary steps are for taking on a contract and getting paid via an umbrella company.

If possible PM would be great.

Thanks to anyone who can help.

Kaminsky

Firstly you will need to get a contracting job through an agency of some sort. There are some good ones that get lots of work. A good cross referencing of jobserve for the relevent jobs in your area will tell you the kind of agencies that post up lots of jobs. Forgot those that post only a couple no matter how good the ad looks. Apply to these agencies either on the back of a jobserve ad or, better yet, apply to them direct to go on their books. Once you get your first gig and do well with no sickness, time off or messing about like that, they will start giving you more as you can be relied on and make them look good. Yadda Yadda.

Once you get a gig and before you start, get yourself an umbrella agency. Look at what their monthly charges are and more importantly, how long they have been around. Longer the better as they will have all their glitches and non payment mess ups sorted.

Your umbrella must know about the gig before you start so the proper documentation/rates of pay can be signed between you, your recruitment agency and your umbrella company.

The way it works is that you put in a weekly time sheet to your agency but also typically go online and put in the same timesheet to your umbrella agency. They then bill the agency whilst at the same time, your recruitment agency is billing the client.

Effectively, you do not work for the client. You sub contract to the recruitment agency who are responsible for paying you.... NOT the client. If the client does not pay the agency, that's not really your problem although, if the worst happens, your agency can pull you off the job and then enter into a law suit to get their money out of the client. However, as said, this is not your concern as the recuitment agency still has to pay you whether they are getting their money or not.

It's a bit nerve racking when you start but in reality it is fairly straightforward. Just got to remember who you are actually working for. The recruitment agency and not the umbrella company. The umbrella company are working for you and they have no say in the contractual agreement between the recruitment agency and the client. Also remember, you can switch to another umbrella at any time (they are not signed into your contract in any way) if they are not up to scratch. Find a new one and resign contracts with them and your agency.

You may want to look into things like holiday pay, sickness, etc depending on the agency/umbrella company.


This way you usually end up paying more than if you set up your own limited company but the umbrella takes away all the grief of taxes, company registration, etc and you just basically get a weekly pay day without the hasstle.

Important thing to keep in mind. You are making both of these companies money ! Another thing to remember right now in this recession, the contract market is in melt down and a lot of contractors that were in semi permanent roles are right in the normal pool of those looking for work as well so the contracting market is nowhere as good as it was say, two years ago. Even then it wasn't great.

If you want to jump out of permy and into contracting right now in the middle of a recession, think it over, very very carefully. Maybe worth staying put for 1 more year if you are in a permy role right now.

Hope that helps

EDIT: One final tip. Get the phone numbers and build up a good friendly relationships with the accounts people of your recruitment agency and your umbrella company. There will be many a time when you are in the middle of a phone battle with them over who has/has not paid up when you go to your bank on pay day and find it empty. KEEP RECEIPTS AND TIMESHEETS AND SCREENSHOTS ALWAYS ! Nobody will fight your corner except you !