Guide Starting out
Top seven contractual mistakes IT contractors make
Ignoring formalities because you’ve got a friendly agent or enthusiastic end-user risks setting yourself up for failure as a freelance tech professional.
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Starting out
First contract, first company, first tax year. 338 articles, newest first.
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Guide Starting out
Top 5 contractor compliance challenges, as 2025-26 nears
Where contractors, agencies and end-clients are most at risk of falling foul, now and from April 2026.
Guide Starting out
How using agency PAYE reference numbers will hit contractors
Five fallouts face contractors from April 2026 thanks to HMRC’s plan to process tax via the agency PAYE reference number.
Guide Starting out
Quick start guide to limited company contracting: seven steps
From business planning to sorting your accounts, starting out as a contractor can feel like a lot. Here’s how new contractors can forget the faff and hit the ground…
Guide Starting out
How storytelling can turbo-charge IT contractors’ careers
As Wednesday’s tell-all webinar will deep dive into, successful IT contracting is sometimes just a beginning, middle and end away.
Guide Starting out
'Do you have any questions for me?' How IT contractors can answer
Acing the interview is often undone at the last hurdle – your invitation to ask some questions of your own (and yes, it may seem rude to decline).
Guide Starting out
Where UK IT contractor demand will be in Q2 2025
Exclusive: Hays predicts the five top IT contractor jobs of tomorrow.
Guide Starting out
How to set goals as an IT contractor in 2025-26
A ‘how-to’ on selecting career targets and then hitting them -- by someone who’s actually made it in the ‘forever changing’ world of freelance tech.
Guide Starting out
‘Why Should We Hire You?’ How to answer as an IT contractor
The actual words you can use to the most irritating, unimaginative, IR35-ignorant question of 2025.
Guide Starting out
How to answer at interview, ‘What’s your greatest weakness?’
Responses like ‘Chocolate’ are among the no-nos for IT contractors asked to fess up their Achilles heel.
Guide Starting out
How to answer in interview, ‘What’s your greatest strength?’
A guide on the first of a few age-old job interview questions that IT contractors love to hate.
Guide Starting out
Top 5 highest-paying IT contractor roles in UK tech sector
A look by Computer Futures at where the money is, and will likely continue to be in 2025.
Guide Starting out
Top three work-life balance hacks to stop IT contractors jumping ship
How end-clients who relied on rates to woo freelance tech talent must now tap into the importance of work-life balance.
Contractors' Questions Starting out
Contractors' Questions: Is a year-long CV gap concerning or normal nowadays?
Top tips from a tech agent who’s seeing once-successful, skilled, IT contractors broken by tumbleweed.
Guide Starting out
How IT contractors can get LinkedIn to take a shine to them (clue: hack the algorithm)
A well-written LinkedIn profile is one thing; actually having people land on it is quite another. Join my Wednesday webinar to find out how.
Guide Starting out
Magicking up an IT contractor job when the walls close in and the bills pile up
A veteran tech contractor shares his survival tips in an IT jobs market constantly wiping the floor with your prospects.
Guide Starting out
EU AI Act: How contractors, developers and deep-fake creators are affected
The Artificial Intelligence Act passed into law on Thursday. Are you compliant?
Guide Starting out
Why your LinkedIn work-winning strategy is probably failing
If your reach, reposts and follower growth are all down fear not, it’s not ‘Likes’ you want; it’s engagement.
Guide Starting out
How storytelling as an IT contractor can land you more work at higher rates
'It’s the way I tell ’em.' Make sure the stories you tell about your contracting biz are memorable for the right reasons.
Guide Starting out
As contractors often understandably ask, what is a Judicial Review?
An overview to the vital court proceeding which holds public bodies like HMRC to account.
Guide Starting out
5 benefits for contractors of working with a top life coach
Empowerment? Transformation? Both should come as standard if you’re a contractor in the market for a professional and personal 'self' boost.
Guide Starting out
How one IT consultant just paid the price for not checking his tax return from his accountant
Getting an adviser in your corner for court is sensible, but relying on one for your tax return without reviewing it is folly -- and potentially pricey.
Contractors' Questions Starting out
Contractors’ Questions: Is AI in recruitment really an ally?
SThree responds to concerns that inexperienced techies are manipulating Artificial Intelligence for their own ends.