Same here. Most new IT contracts are inside IR35, however advertised at the same market rates, which means 20-25% pay cut. This effectively prevents UK businesses hire top talent contractors. Some companies have reacted by increasing the daily rates, others are still not getting it. I can tell numerous stories of top professionals leaving their executive contracts because of the IR35 blanket enforcement. These positions are being assigned to junior workers and the results of this would be evident in few months time.

A word about working abroad – IR35 still applies to you as long as you are UK tax resident. So working in Germany will not help.
Contracting is dead.

No IR35 is killing self-employment. There are fewer contractors. Those contractors are more likely to be associated to umbrella companies; those engagements are more limited in choice and renumeration. There are fewer risks now which reflects the static nature of the relationships.

You might argue that those people are no worse off; I would disagree. You might argue that they are not entitled to the tax relief; you might have an argument there (I would argue that dividend tax rates should be the same as PAYE, then all of this becomes irrelevant).

But SELF employment is most certainly less than it was.

I left the bank and am now still working outside IR35, but my day rate is far less. Working overseas is much more appealing these days. Renumeration in the UK suffers arbitrage against all other countries demanding IT skills. Now that the UK is penalising it’s IT workers, how should I react? One of my colleagues is now working in Germany. The rest of us have been stuck at home under Covid.

Being a contractor in IT has required that I change jobs every 2 years. This has both positives and negatives. Positives being that my exposure to different problems is now much broader. I’m simply better for it. Permies I work with show their roots. The downside is that contractors build up relationships which is good business and then are effectively prohibited from working with erstwhile clients again. This makes no sense from a business standpoint.

The resourcing houses are now in a position to bid down contractor PAYE day rates, while bidding up supplier rates and taking the difference. In the past the difference has been claimed by recruitment companies that had to compete to attract your engagement. Now since you are affectively a permie working for one of those houses, they can re-roll you into other engagements for their clients. No choice for you. Less work for them, so more profit for them. Less variety for the contractors, more stagnation, less mobility, less pay and also less compensation in terms of the benefits permies get.

Polices should have read policed

In addition we would have had no avoidance with disguised remuneration schemes or indeed the loan charge. HMRC have to accept responsibility for their own failings

Addendum to my last post

Polices should have read policed

In addition we would have had no avoidance with disguised remuneration schemes or indeed the loan charge. HMRC have to accept responsibility for their own failings

Good retort but i would go further and say IR35 wasnt even necessary it was introduced in 2000 and was a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. 80% of those who were so called exploiting the physical advantage of a corporate structure were engaged via a recruitment agency and we had at that time the Agency Rules ICTA 1988 section 134 which is now ITEPA 2003 s44 and both clearly state all remuneration received from a Agency should be taxed under schedule E (PAYE). Agencies encouraged use of PSC’s for own financial gain by saving paying employers NIC’s. If HMRC had polices this sector and enforced legislation that was in place IR35 would have never got on the statute books