> You should have savings to cover at least 4 months of
> your usual expenses. You will spend some money
> establishing a company. It may take several weeks to
> find your first contract.
If you wanted to be extra safe, sure. I made the switch when I was heavily in debt, and it helped me get out of debt, so YMMV.
> A service like www.formationsfactory.co.uk will make the
> incorporation process easy.
Actually it's super easy online using the UK government sites now. I set up a company (again) about ~14 months ago, and it took about an hour of filling in .gov.uk forms online. I would recommend just doing it yourself.
Setting up a bank account is pretty easy too, and I'm not sure why you'd use a third party for it. 15 minutes of filling out HSBC forms did it for me.
> Finding your first client might be hard.
Sure. Most permanent jobs have a 4 week notice period, and you can find contractor roles happy for you to start in 4 weeks. Line one up before you quit, and there's no 2-3 week mad rushing around trying to find a contract.
If you're just getting in to it, start with a recruiter. They'll eat in to your contract rate, for sure, but they'll also have a far better visibility of the market than you, they'll get better feedback from clients than you, and they'll help chase your invoices and so on. I worked as a contractor for a long time and never had a bad experience with a recruiter, where the OP seems to have had a dreadful time...
> rates
Go look on jobsite. For Central London, a developer should be asking for £300-£600/pd depending on seniority and what they're doing.
> IR35
In addition to IR35, they're about to massively change how dividend tax works. You might be better off looking at an umbrella company like Giant, who'll save you a lot of accounting hassles...
Setting up a bank account is pretty easy too, and I'm not sure why you'd use a third party for it. 15 minutes of filling out HSBC forms did it for me.
Sure. Most permanent jobs have a 4 week notice period, and you can find contractor roles happy for you to start in 4 weeks. Line one up before you quit, and there's no 2-3 week mad rushing around trying to find a contract.If you're just getting in to it, start with a recruiter. They'll eat in to your contract rate, for sure, but they'll also have a far better visibility of the market than you, they'll get better feedback from clients than you, and they'll help chase your invoices and so on. I worked as a contractor for a long time and never had a bad experience with a recruiter, where the OP seems to have had a dreadful time...
Go look on jobsite. For Central London, a developer should be asking for £300-£600/pd depending on seniority and what they're doing. In addition to IR35, they're about to massively change how dividend tax works. You might be better off looking at an umbrella company like Giant, who'll save you a lot of accounting hassles...