ContractorUK

For years, contractors caught up in the loan charge have been fighting HMRC. Now some are fighting someone else entirely. Since April 2026, letters have been arriving at contractors' doors. Not from HMRC. From a private company called West 28th Street Limited, demanding repayment of the original loans, on top of whatever is already owed to the taxman. We wanted to know who was behind it. So, we asked investigative journalist Firgas Esack and Lottie Hutchins to find out. They traced a corporate trail through more than 30 companies spanning the UK, Isle of Man and Malta. They found dissolved companies, disqualified directors, multi-million-pound balance sheets with no staff, and a chain of loan book transfers that the public record still cannot fully explain. The question at the heart of it is simple. The answer, it turns out, is anything but. Who owns the loans? If you've received a letter from West 28th Street Limited, or know someone who has, this is essential reading. Our investigation is live now. 🔗 contractoruk.com/news/who-owns-…

Friday is HMRC's second Payments on Account deadline, and today is realistically the last day to get your figures to your accountant. No penalty lands on August 1st, but interest starts immediately, and unpaid POAs can tip into penalty territory by January 2027. Lauren Monks of Dolan Accountancy explains what limited company contractors need to do before July 31st: how POAs are calculated, who they catch, and when a reduction is worth applying for. And this could all be about to change. A live HMRC consultation proposes scrapping the January/July split entirely, merging POAs into monthly payments from April 2029, with up to 12 installments a year forecast from your past returns. Contractors have until August 4th to have their say. Read the full guide on ContractorUK: contractoruk.com/limited-compan…

Andy Burnham's first week: cheaper bus fares and VAT off energy bills. Not what contractors are waiting for. Starmer's 174-seat landslide didn't protect him, and Burnham knows how fast the clock runs down. The first 100 days are the real test. IPSE's head of policy and research Josh Toovey sets out the five things contractors need from the new PM. Among them: reversing the employer NICs rise that has clients shelving contractor hiring, and finally publishing the employment status review, which is drafted, we hear, but seemingly held back by the transition. Deliver all five, and "business-friendly" becomes more than rhetoric. contractoruk.com/news/andy-burn…

Out with the old, in with the new. Labour has replaced Starmer with Burnham, swapping one idea of what's wrong with British housing for a completely different one. One fixes how homes are bought. The other rewrites who gets to own one. Starmer's answer was faster, digital, and harder for chains to collapse. That part is confirmed policy, and the government claims it'll save first-time buyers up to £650 and four weeks. Burnham wants the rewrite: £40bn for council homes, a lower mansion tax threshold, possibly replacing council tax and stamp duty with an annual property tax. None of it is official policy yet. But whether homebuying gets fixed or ownership gets rewritten, one thing stays the same: what makes a contractor mortgage application strong. Day rate, retained profits, and a lender who knows how to read both. John Yerou, founder and CEO of contractor mortgage broker Freelancer Financials, separates what's confirmed from what's speculation, and explains why waiting for Burnham to show his hand is the one move that doesn't pay. contractoruk.com/news/burnham-v…

The government now wants to tax you on money you haven't earned yet. But why? HMRC is consulting on collecting tax monthly from the self-employed, with each bill based on last year's return, chopped into twelve. Last year's numbers, this year's bill, no matter what this month actually looks like. One freelancer told us she could technically handle it. She'd just rather not spend her life doing it. Because when clients treat 30-day payment terms as a suggestion, no two months look the same. And that's the real story here. This isn't a tax problem, it's a cash flow problem. The self-employed already spend half their lives chasing payment for work they've already done. It's not unheard of for contractors to take out short-term loans to plan around slow payers. But borrowing to pay a tax bill? For many, that will be a step too far. Lottie ㅤHutchins writes for ContractorUK on HMRC's plans, and speaks to a freelancer abroad who already lives under this exact system. She likes it. But her country offers one safety net HMRC's proposal doesn't. The consultation closes on 4 August. That's three weeks to tell HMRC how self-employed income actually arrives. We already have to pay tax on every pound we earn. Just let us earn it first. contractoruk.com/news/hmrc-mont…

Andy Burnham is now prime minister. Past the headlines, what does this actually mean for contractors? Five reported tech policies are already set to shape his strategy for the UK IT sector and its contractors. Among the five: Digital ID gone, and an AI strategy that puts the UK first. Yet the loudest thing is a silence: no commitment to reversing the employer NICs increase that end-clients blame for their subdued contractor hiring. With Keir Starmer and his 25 U-turns out the door, all we can do now is watch and see whether Burnham actually delivers on what he sets out in the days ahead. Read the full article on ContractorUK contractoruk.com/news/what-andy…

Could zero-hours reform end up over-policing contracting? That's the paradox: rules designed to protect vulnerable workers could end up making the wider contractor market less flexible. The Fair Work Agency is already preparing to enforce zero-hours reforms, with proposed fines of up to £20,000 per worker for missed short-notice shift payments. Meanwhile, the government is consulting on proposals that could, in some circumstances, see umbrella companies become responsible for offering guaranteed hours. Chris Bloor, Compliance Director at Sapphire, writes exclusively for ContractorUK on what the Fair Work Agency's chair revealed at the FCSA Forum, why the message on the zero-hours consultation is "respond, respond, respond", and why compliance is becoming a continuous discipline. Read the full article on ContractorUK: contractoruk.com/news/zero-hour…

Looking for an outside IR35 role? We know the struggle. On ContractorUK you can filter by IR35 status, compare day rates and bookmark roles to revisit later. Less noise. More roles that actually work for you. contractoruk.com/contract_jobs

Whilst dodgy umbrella promotion may finally be reaching the end of the road, fraud is only just showing off its latest schemes to catch out contractors. The latest? Cloning. Fraudsters are impersonating reputable umbrellas by faking their documentation and even claiming their industry accreditations to appear credible to agencies and contractors. The bigger question raised? Why it's so easy to set up a fake company in the first place, when the named "director" behind the clone has almost no online footprint at all. Lucy Smith, founder of Clarity Umbrella Ltd, writes exclusively for ContractorUK on her own experience getting cloned, why JSL may be fueling it, and why Companies House needs to get serious, cracking down on these fraudulent companies. Read the full article on ContractorUK: contractoruk.com/news/umbrella-…

100 days of JSL, and the mass umbrella cull everyone braced for hasn't happened. Something quieter, and arguably more important, has. Compliance is genuinely moving in the right direction. But JSL hasn't cleansed the market of operators willing to cut corners. As the big agencies and MSPs tighten up, those operators are simply drifting down the supply chain to less experienced, less diligent agencies that often don't even realise JSL applies to them. That's where the real exposure now sits, on the businesses least equipped to spot it. So is JSL delivering on its promise? 100 days in, the answer is more nuanced than either side predicted. Ashley Olliver, a director at Parasol, writes exclusively for ContractorUK, breaking down what JSL actually means for contractors 100 days in, and whether its high ambitions are holding true. Read the full article on ContractorUK: contractoruk.com/news/jsl-100-d…

When a record summer heatwave and the World Cup hit at the same time, contracting demand can only hold on for so long. Exclusive REC data shared with ContractorUK shows IT contractor demand slipped to 48.2 in June 2026, back below the 50.0 growth line and down from 50.5 in May. But as VIQU IT's Matt Collingwood puts it, "the issue isn't a lack of opportunity, it's a lack of urgency in the market to get hiring decisions over the line." The upshot? The summer slowdown that usually lands in mid-July arrived weeks early. Reed's Kelly Macey told us contractor hiring "didn't fall off a cliff," but recruitment processes are slowing as decision-makers and tech professionals start taking summer leave. VIQU IT and Reed break down what June's dip really means for contractors, and why an early start to summer may not mean an early finish. Read the full article on ContractorUK: contractoruk.com/news/it-contra…

Zero-hours contract reform could end up doing something unintended: making traditional limited company contracting more attractive to hirers again. Under the "Make Work Pay" plans, long-serving umbrella workers could have to be offered a permanent contract, straight from the end-client. For hirers who rely on umbrellas to stay flexible, that could change hiring entirely. The rules don't apply to genuine limited company contractors. So while umbrellas get riskier, PSCs start to look simpler again, and some hirers may finally rethink their post-IR35 PSC bans. Andy Chamberlain, head of strategic policy and advocacy at the FCSA, breaks down what this means for contractors and why it could be a double-edged sword for umbrella workers. Read the full article on ContractorUK: contractoruk.com/news/how-zero-…

The government presented the McCann Loan Charge Review as "completely independent." It turns out it wasn't. Newly released Freedom of Information disclosures show that before McCann was ever appointed, the Treasury's own "Candidate Due Diligence" file had already flagged three conflicts of interest: his previous work for HMRC, his public comments on the loan charge, and his public support for Labour. All noted, all on the record, but seemingly waved through. And that's a tough pill given what contractors were promised. Rachel Reeves pledged a "truly independent" review, yet this looks a lot like HMRC reviewing its own policies. The result focused on settlement terms while sidestepping the bigger question: whether HMRC's own approach to the loan charge has been fair or proportionate. Greg Smith MP, co-chair of the Loan Charge & Taxpayer Fairness APPG, writes exclusively for ContractorUK, breaking down what this actually means for contractors waiting for a fair resolution, and whether one can even be expected. Read the full article exclusively on ContractorUK, contractoruk.com/news/labour-lo…

The government has confirmed there will be no review of off-payroll working, no plans for a Single Worker Status, and no imminent review of employment status. The update came last week, when ministers answered four questions from Conservative MP Andrew Snowden. The answers were short and direct: no current plans to review the IR35 reforms, no new categories of employment status, and a consultation on status only "in due course." None of this means IR35 enforcement has quietened down. Public sector bodies have already faced around £400m in liabilities for getting status wrong, including £104m from the Post Office alone, and since 2023 HMRC has quietly been gathering information through its "Status and Off-Payroll Working Questionnaire." In our latest piece, Danny Batey, a former HMRC inspector and now senior consultant at Markel Tax, explains what the government's answers really mean for contractors and why IR35 has to be treated as a continuous process rather than a one-off tick-box. Read the full article on ContractorUK contractoruk.com/news/hmrc-off-…

The AI premium isn't coming. It's here. AI Agents are commanding £600 a day. RAG is up +4.55% to £575. And "AI Engineer" now pays more than most cloud specialisms. July 2026's contractor market rates are live, and the AI gap is widening. The latest data across in-demand IT roles: contractoruk.com/market_rates Check your rate: contractoruk.com/calculators/da…

It's taken 10 years of litigation and five court decisions, but PGMOL have won against HMRC. HMRC have confirmed to ContractorUK they will not be appealing the First-tier Tribunal decision, and that for tax purposes the referees engaged by PGMOL were self-employed. On the surface, a clean win. But it isn't the "significant shift" some headlines claim. The legislation hasn't changed, the Off-Payroll Working rules haven't changed, and enforcement isn't easing. However, this does serve as a reminder that none of the three status factors is decisive on its own. In our latest article, Angela Ferguson, head of employment taxes at PSTAX, breaks down what HMRC dropping PGMOL really means for contractors, why control, mutuality of obligation and the right of substitution have to be weighed together, and the steps you should take to stay on the right side of IR35. Read the full article on ContractorUK, contractoruk.com/news/hmrc-drop…

Holding crypto alongside your contracting income? HMRC has just shown its hand. Crypto investments have always been notoriously hard for The Revenue to track, multiple exchanges, offshore holdings and the sheer number of transactions, however HMRC is not simply reacting anymore they are preparing for scale. In their latest qualitative study, reading between the numbers, a revealing glimpse is visible into how future enforcement may work and contractors need to be prepared. Since the 1st of January exchanges and platforms have reported user activity to tax authorities; the taxman is not in the dark anymore. In our latest article SG Accounting’s MD Daniel Mepham FCCA breaks down what this means for contractors invested in crypto and the enforcement areas that should be on the radar. Read the full article on ContractorUK: contractoruk.com/news/hmrc-cryp…

Forward Deployed Engineering has quietly become one of the best-paid roles in UK contracting, and you don't always need to join one of the big players to capitalise. With day-rates that can run well into four figures, and a "founder mindset" sitting right at the heart of the job, experienced contractors may turn out to be the ideal match. OpenAI, Palantir and Anthropic are the proven names linked with this role, but in the past few months, what was once seen as a niche role has expanded fast with the rise of automation and AI in traditional firms too. As Adam Moore, Managing Director of specialist recruitment agency Morela, writes for Contractor UK, "the ultimate role might not be in the FDE capacity you'd immediately think of." And that's exactly where contractors have the edge. The heart of UK contracting is the entrepreneurial mindset that gets built alongside it: managing clients, cashflow and expansion. It's the same instinct an FDE role demands, embedding with a client, owning delivery end-to-end, and making the call when there's no playbook to follow. Read the full article on ContractorUK: contractoruk.com/news/forward-d…

After more than four years of waiting, Boox contractors have finally had their day in court. On Monday, the Managed Service Company hearing for Boox contractors opened at the First-tier Tribunal. It's the moment hundreds of people have been waiting for since HMRC's determinations landed. But anyone expecting a clean, decisive decision should be prepared for a long, drawn-out process. This is a case built on HMRC's "best judgement," which, translated, means little to no individual fact-finding on the contractors it accused of being MSCs. It's a case where affected contractors splintered into four very different camps. And it's a case where, before proceedings even began, HMRC quietly withdrew one case on a procedural technicality tied to a Debt Transfer Notice. A reminder that the rules cut both ways. In our latest article, Tyra Ali, consultancy manager at Markel Tax, writes just how significant this moment is for the contractors caught up in it, and why reaching the FTT is far from the end of the story. An important milestone, or just the very early beginning of a protracted end that may not conclude until 2031? contractoruk.com/news/boox-cont…

Keir Starmer is leaving — and unelected Andy Burnham is the front-runner for the top job. We all saw the news shots: the ex-Manchester mayor making his trek to Westminster, being sworn in, Conservative MPs quipping "he's not the messiah." But for the UK's contractors, freelancers and umbrella workforce, a Burnham premiership genuinely cuts both ways. The last time Burnham spoke to ContractorUK was March 2020, on a call with the "excluded" community during covid. Back then he questioned whether limited company contractors being frozen out of support was "a deliberate exclusion or an oversight." Whether that scrutiny carries into government remains to be seen. To get past the headlines, we went to IR35, tax and recruitment experts for their read on what a Burnham government would actually mean for contracting. “Messiah” of the self-employed, or the most interventionist PM yet for contractors? Read the full article on ContractorUK: contractoruk.com/news/what-andy…