Agency Chef — Umbrella vs PayE
So I’ve been in the industry for going on 10 years now.
The pay at my last job wasn’t great; after hearing about how well paid Agency Chefs are, I decided to make the jump. weirdly enjoyed the work itself.
I received my first weekly payslip “illustration” today (of which i am told this is an estimate assuming £18 p/h for 40 hours a week, even though my rates of pay can range from £17.75 - £27 per hour depending on the job, and my hours also vary)
And.. am I missing something here? It seems to me that it works out being WORSE than regular employment.
The math as follows, given a 40 hour week at £18 an hour, coming to £720 a week—
- Before anything else, £97 income tax is deducted (in england after the 12.7k allowance this is about 20% of what i earn)
- £14 is taken in admin fees
- After this, the umbrella company itself charges me around %12.5 for employers NI
- If I decided to withhold my holiday pay, they would take another 12.05% of the hours i worked to cover this.
- They also made me aware that I might be liable to pay more to HMRC come the end of the financial year, meaning i’d probably have to hire an accountant to look things over?
My take home with holiday pay (that again, they would be taking out of my pocket) is around £500 per week.
So basically my net pay after tax and everything else— if i didnt request advanced holiday pay— i’d be loosing a solid 40-45% of what I earn?
Understandable if i was making say, £50/60k+, but with the projections showing gross pay to be between 30-35k a year, it doesnt feel right.
Doing mental gymnastics with myself because to me this seems like i’d be getting paid what I’d usually expect if i was a full-time employee at one company, but i’m not accruing holiday pay the company would pay out of pocket for itself, same with the employers NI.
It seems like i’m getting paid a normal wage but everything an employer would usually cover is front-loaded back to me.
And to top that, I cannot guarantee the work. I’m pretty much at the whim of the agency getting me work, who will then invoice another company to pay me.
Am I missing something? I’m really not sure if i’m being an idiot— nor am I sure what to do from here.
Could really do with some advice and really wasnt sure where to post this, honestly.
Should I request that the agency puts me on its own books? And if so, how would that affect my pay?