Contracting News

When insolvency experts like us wind up recruitment companies, it’s proactivity that often separates the paid from the unpaid.

The withdrawal of an Employment Rights Bill amendment isn’t the last contractors will hear of a brolly licensing authority. Not if we have anything to do with it.

Contractors with a buy-to-let who believe Autumn Budget will be bruising face a choice: raise the rent, or get out now before the taxman cometh.

Whether it’s blue, red, or another hue, one party will finish conference season with the self-employed vote more in the bag than the others.

Despite concerns over its independence and scope, the ‘Freelance Champion’ won’t face any competition in its role supporting IT contractors.

The government’s focus is firmly on umbrella companies, but ‘there’s still a lot on the table’ that chancellor Rachel Reeves could hit contractors with 12 weeks from now.

Contractor tax and accounting experts say the chancellor’s mooted plan to get the UK ‘unstuck’ has a size issue.

This government must resist labelling status ‘too difficult to fix,’ and in the process, clear up IR35 nonsense.

Far from thawing out the threshold freeze we’ve all suffered since 2022/23, Reeves is tipped to soon leave even more of your earnings out in the cold.

A commitment to consult ‘by the end of this year’ may reassure contractors, but not those who've been pinning their hopes on Single Worker Status.

It’s time to turn the page on the CV, as a rewrite won’t cut it. It’s a medieval innovation that’s no longer innovating.

Hopes now rest with Autumn Budget following the third-lowest score for IT contractors in 2025, which isn’t due to a ‘summer slowdown,’ but is, conversely, amid a ‘sunnier outlook.'

Dual blend: Integrating flexible talent with AI expertise, ahead of merging internal and external teams, is now considered the key to building a high-performance workforce.

None of us ever appears quite as we hope, particularly if you miss this Wednesday’s webinar and then get checked out via ‘LinkedIn Recruiter.’

If PAYE/NICs to the taxman fall short under both Chapters 11 and 7, the top agency or MSP is on the hook. And if there’s no agency or no umbrella, the end-client is on the hook.

The UK’s new SBC Emma Jones exclusively invites ContractorUK readers to respond to ‘Late Payments: tackling poor payment practices.’

Policy-makers’ focus on 665,000 Personal Service Companies must be sharpened to untangle them from the web that successive governments have ensnared them in.

Nine judges have 13 weeks to whittle down 118 finalists to 30 winners -- only those who ‘truly go above and beyond’ for contractors.

Agencies and end-clients appear to be hogging the JSL liability limelight. But ‘relevant party’ means there’s room for one more.

The ‘toughest crackdown on late payments to SMEs in a generation’ could potentially ‘bring super slow payers up to speed,’ or it might merely be 'tinkering around the edges.’

HMRC’s ‘retrospective due diligence’ -- revisiting MSC determinations mid-appeal to request the actual income data -- is unprecedented. So too will be the FTT’s decision in just six months.

Contrary to dangerous assumptions, it’s end-clients who face joint and several liability for agency contractors’ PAYE/NIC debts, unless an umbrella company is involved.

FCSA says it’s legally reviewing a range of tax proposals, because it has found them wanting on fairness, proportionality, clarity and viability.

The taxman just turned down an opportunity to ‘help the contractor supply chain,’ on the grounds of risk, length and uncertainty.

Official or not, a delay to an arduous filing change for micro and small company directors is a U-turn we can all get behind.

What steps contractors can take before their agency joins the hundreds going bust -- including ‘Top 10 hacks to survive staffing firms shutting down.’

Relief as L-Day passes without 'shockers,' despite a new legal definition of ‘umbrella company,’ and the novel concept of the ‘purported umbrella’.

The ERB’s ‘threat of rising costs’ kept hirers in ‘wait and see’ mode in June, denying IT contractors the chance to capitalise on May’s uptick.

A ‘big shift’ on supply chain accountability and non-compliance risk in the UK contractor sector is imminent.

Soulless dross that Artificial Intelligence like ChatGPT is churning out is the CV market’s biggest problem, not CVs themselves.

All supply chain parties are bracing themselves for Finance Bill 2026, the ERB, and JSL legislation for umbrella companies.

With dividends’ future uncertain, it’s probably now a case of ‘every little helps,’ and that includes making your spouse a shareholder.

How contractor recruitment agencies appear to be caught between two competing pieces of legislation, and what navigating the push-pull needs to involve.

‘Named and shamed’ avoidance schemes are taking keywords associated with contracting for their names. Or just potentially trading off someone else’s.

It might be legislation to address umbrella companies, but JSL means it’s agencies that must try to survive and not get wiped out.

A new freelance champion is coming. Here’s three things that need to happen next for it to more than just symbolically lift contracting.

Keeping ‘business’ separate from ‘personal’ is among the main points of the darts pro who’s been disqualified.

APSCo: Contractors’ agencies aren’t set to bear the brunt of everything under the 2026-27 brolly shake-up.

The IT contractor jobs market climbs to an 18-month high, thanks to heftier employment costs and projects getting ‘cautious green lights.’

A rethink by end-hirers on how to structure and allocate resources bodes well for IT contractors, says staffing giant Robert Half.