IR35 is looming over all contractors in the uk, it could be in place in April 2020, and there no doubt if it does come into full effect, then it will change how contractors operate.
For those who don’t know about IR35 then it is new legislation where the uk government is trying to stop those contractors who have been working as full time employees but still being paid on a contractor rate.
The idea is that if you have a contract where you are employed to work for a firm in a role where a full time employee could actually do the role, the. You as the contractor needs to prove that your contract is actually outside the IR35 guidelines. If it falls within. The IR35 rules then you will have to pay the same level as tax that a permanent employee pays.
This is a high level overview of IR35 it is worth really looking into the official government websites in order to find out more about IR35.
How IR35 could change how I work
For me if the IR35 rules do become law then it will change how I currently work. I would have to only take on contracts where it is clearly set out what the project is be working on and when it is expected to finish, to show that I am only employed to work on that project. Another way to show that the contract is outside IR35 I’d need to show that I’m not needed to work onsite, instead I’ve been employed to work as a consultant on a single project, and it’s up to me on how and where I work on this project. So if I want I could say that I work only from my home office or a specific work space. I’ll also need to show that I’m using my own equipment to work on this project, though I could see this being an issue for some large organisations where for security reasons they want people working on their projects to use equipment the company provides.
These changes, aren’t to much of a change for how I currently work, I think it makes me work in more of a freelance working model than a contractors who just works as a extra resource for a company who comes into the office day to day and just works on the same project.
How will this be effecting recruitment agencies
If IR35 does come in it could have some serious changes to how recruitment agencies work. They will have to now find developers who can work on a project instead of getting in an extra resource for a company. It will be interesting to see how they will be changing or will they leave the contractor market altogether and just concentrate on sourcing full time employees?
The contracting market is going to be interesting in the coming months, does this mean I’m looking to go permanent? Well, no. I enjoy working for myself and if the IR35 rules are changing to me needed to work more as a project specialist then that suits me.
I enjoy working on Angular and Angular based project, so if you are looking for an Angular specialist to work on your next web application project, feel free to contact me.