We’re different because each employee is important to us, and we don’t think it’s OK to do the legal minimum.

That’s why we’re obsessive about getting the basics right, ensuring you get paid correctly and on time, that you understand your pay and your rights and your experience of dealing with us is always as positive as possible.

That’s also why we offer a range of employee benefits designed to help you make your money go further, take care of yourself and your family, and get more out of life as a contractor.

The short answer is that you’re not, but we do understand why you would think you are. We often see this question when the pay rate has not been explained correctly. This is how umbrella pay actually works:

• You are our employee, and we charge you out to our customer – the recruitment agency or end client – at the agreed contract rate.
• We cover our costs and retain a small margin from the rate we charge for your work.
• We then pay you as our employee.

Like all compliant umbrella companies, we make our living by charging out our employees to our customers at a profit, not by charging our employees for a service.

Yes, we do have existing discounts in place with specific recruitment agencies, and agencies that are members of recruitment trade bodies, such as REC, APSCo, GQEA, TEAM etc…  Please inform us of the agency that you work with, and we’ll be able to advise if there are any discounts or promotions in place.

With a highly robust infrastructure and scalable technologies, we are able to keep our margin very low, which helps us maximise your gross pay.  

No. There are no “hidden” costs, and it’s free to join us and free to leave. Employment with us also includes:

• £25 million employer’s liability, public liability and professional indemnity insurance
• Full employment rights, including paid holiday, sick pay, maternity/paternity pay and access to a workplace pension.
• Fair Pay Companion, our extraordinary employee benefits platform.
• Our dedicated Contractor Care team

These are the costs we have to pay as your employer, including Employers NI, Apprenticeship Levy, holiday pay and employer pension contributions.

We itemise these on your pay documents so you can see how we calculate your gross pay, but you are not paying them. We cover these costs from the amount we charge the agency/client for the work you complete as our employee.

The contract rate paid by the agency/client is usually uplifted to account for these costs.   

Employer’s NI is a cost we have to pay as your employer, and we cover it from the amount we charge the agency/client for your work. This is detailed on your pay documents, along with the other employment costs, so you can see how we calculate your gross pay, but you are not paying it. The contract rate paid by the agency/client is usually uplifted to account for employment costs.  

You do pay Employees NI, just like any other UK employee does.  

Apprenticeship Levy is an additional tax levied against large employers in the UK.  An employer with a payroll bill over £3 million per year is subject to an additional 0.5% tax.  This is calculated as 0.5% of Gross Pay. 

As Apprenticeship Levy is a cost we have to pay as your employer, we cover it from the amount we charge the agency/client for your work. This is detailed on your pay documents, along with the other employment costs, so you can see how we calculate your gross pay, but you are not paying it.

The contract rate paid by the agency/client is usually uplifted to account for employment costs.  

You receive statutory holiday pay every time you’re paid in respect of your entitlement to paid leave. This is shown as HOLIDAY ACCRUED on your payslip.

Standard statutory holiday pay is currently 12.07% of your pay rate, although your individual accrual rate may vary due to AWR and increased comparator entitlements such as additional annual leave etc…

Yes, absolutely.  Our standard position is that holiday pay is accrued for later use, you can then request it as pay when you take time off work.  If you prefer to have your holiday pay advanced to you each time you are paid, please contact our Contractor Care team with this request.

You will be given the choice when you sign up with Fair Pay Services and are free to change your mind at any point. It’s very important that you are able to take time off, so if you choose not to accrue holiday pay you should make your own provision to cover your holidays.

The contract rate paid to us by your agency/client includes our margin and costs, one of which is holiday pay – As a UK employee you are entitled to the statutory minimum paid holiday, and this is a cost to us as your employer.  We have to cover this cost from the contract rate when we calculate your gross pay.

It’s then your choice whether you have it accrued for later use, or added to your payslip to be taxed and advanced to you in the current week.  We’re happy to provide illustrations of both options.

It’s very important that you are able to take time off, so if you choose not to accrue holiday pay you should make your own provision to cover your holidays.

Over a full year, it is broadly the same and is more to do with your preference of whether you want your holiday pay in advance, or held in a fund to claim while you are not working.

To allow one contract of employment (COE) to cover all your assignments, even when the contract rate is different, we split your gross pay into two distinct amounts: “basic rate” and “additional taxable wage”.

Basic rate is the pay rate shown on your COE, and it’s always the number of hours you worked at National Minimum Wage (NMW). If your usual working day was 8 hours x 5 days per week, the basic rate would show as 40 hours at NMW (currently £11.44). 

The Additional Taxable Wage amount is the remainder of your gross pay after NMW is calculated – so it’s a taxable part of your gross pay.

This allows us to account for fluctuations in employment costs and the contract rate while ensuring continuous employment across all your assignments.   

As an employee you are entitled to statutory sick pay (SSP). SSP is paid when you are sick for 4 days in a row. You start receiving SSP from the fourth day (if you normally work that day) as the first three are so called ‘waiting days’ or ‘qualifying days’.

Please contact our Contractor Care team if you need to make a claim for SSP.

You will receive maternity pay & leave if you are eligible.  If you are, at least 15 weeks before the baby is expected, you must tell us the date that:

• the baby is due
• when you want to start your maternity leave – you can change this with 28 days’ notice

You can see further details of maternity pay & leave, including eligibility and providing proof of eligibility at https://www.gov.uk/maternity-pay-leave

Please note that it is also your responsibility to advise the Agency and client of the pregnancy and any maternity leave that is permitted.

You will receive paternity pay & leave if you are eligible. If you are, you can choose to take either 1 or 2 weeks. Leave cannot start before the birth and it must end within 56 days of the birth (or due date if the baby is early).

You can see further details of paternity pay & leave, including eligibility and providing proof of eligibility at https://www.gov.uk/paternity-pay-leave

Please note that it is also your responsibility to advise your Agency and client of the pregnancy and any paternity leave that is permitted.

No, you would become our employee and at the end of the tax year, we will issue you a P60 detailing your total income and total taxes etc…. These figures should be entered into your tax return if you need to do one for other reasons and will be considered as part of your overall tax liability and tax paid.

If you are employed by us on April 5th (the end of the tax year), we will issue you a P60 detailing your total income and total taxes etc…  This will be issued by the end of May following the tax year end. These figures should be entered into your Self-Assessment tax return and will be considered as part of your overall tax liability and tax paid.  If you leave our employment at any point during the tax year, we will issue you a P45 instead.  The figures on the P45 can be used by your new employer, or entered into your Self-Assessment tax return if appropriate.

Yes, if you’re employed by us when the tax year ends on 5th April, we’ll issue your P60 by the end of May.

The ‘336 Hours annually employment contract’ refers to clause 3.3 of our contract of employment, if you’re an umbrella employee, and 3.2 if you’re a PEO employee.  

We employ contractors, agency workers and other types of temporary workers with continuous contracts of employment. In order to class as ‘continuous’ employment, we must provide a guarantee of at least 336 hours of work per year at the minimum wage.

We have an internal process to monitor employees who are not working at least 8 hours per week, to discuss with them if they are able to accept and work the guaranteed 336 hours.  It is then their choice whether to accept or reject those hours.

We use the same standard contract of employment to cover all employees, and it obviously can’t include the detail of each assignment. However, clause 2.1 refers to the assignment schedule for specific information.  The assignment schedule is provided by the agency or client and has specific information such as hours of work, contracts rates, notice periods etc…  This information then takes precedence over the contract of employment.

When you start repaying your loan and how much you repay depends on your repayment plan.  If you’re not sure which repayment plan you are on, you can find out more by clicking https://www.gov.uk/repaying-your-student-loan/which-repayment-plan-you-are-on

There are 2 different options that you can choose when it comes to contributing to a pension when working for us.  Auto-enrolment into a workplace pension scheme is the most common method of contributing. Under auto-enrolment, you would be enrolled onto our chosen workplace pension scheme (Options) and 8% of your qualifying earnings would be contributed to your pension fund. This is broken down as a 3% employer contribution, and a 5% employee contribution.

We are required by law to enrol all eligible workers into our workplace pension after 3 months.  As above, you are able to enrol at any point prior to auto-enrolment at 3 months – Just let us know if you would like to do this. 

Salary sacrifice is an alternative way of contributing, which can increase the amount you pay into your pension pot as it is more tax efficient. Any contributions made in this way are made as an employers pension contribution.  This is deducted at source, therefore saving on the Employer’s National Insurance Contributions, the Apprenticeship Levy and personal deductions such as Income Tax / Employee’s National Insurance etc…  Some key points to be aware of regarding salary sacrifice are;

• Salary sacrifice should always be based on a percentage rather than a fixed amount, to account for weeks where you may not work as much as usual.  
• Salary sacrifice may not be suitable if your income is lower, as any contributions could take your earnings below the National Minimum Wage.  
• You should consider that salary sacrifice arrangements reduce your taxable pay, therefore could affect you if you are applying for loans or mortgages, or when calculating entitlements for employment benefits such as Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) etc… 

You can contribute to a pension of your choice through salary sacrifice either as well as or instead of enrolment in our workplace pension scheme.

To arrange salary sacrifice, please email your request to [email protected]. The team will email you a form to capture the details we need – please complete this and return it to us.