Podcast: Introducing Proudly Off Payroll


Introducing Proudly Off Payroll, a regular podcast celebrating the independent consultant and providing the expert advice you need to succeed.

Listen to this episode now:

You can find all episodes of the Proudly Off Payroll Podcast here.

Self-employed professionals have felt some heavy punches this year. The news that IR35 was going ahead in the private sector, despite all the evidence from enquiries and the Taylor Review, put independent consultants and their families through the ringer to say the least.

It’s clear that the ‘party of business’ hadn’t comprehended the magnitude of the contribution small services businesses deliver to the economy.

The reprieve to delay until April 2021 was welcome when covid-19 hit, however, it wasn’t long before people felt defeated again. The inadequate support provided by the chancellor, as an afterthought, only helped to diminish the sense of worth among the community. It was also loaded with a warning and implied, unfairly, the self-employed were ‘tax dodgers’.

If you’ve found yourself caught up in the loan charge scandal then it might be hard to see a way out.

It’s a daunting time and the frustration we heard from clients every day spurred us on to help. It’s why we set up offpayroll.org.uk, to give people a voice, to help drive change and make a clear statement that you unfairly being are locked out of work.

Standing proud

It won’t cure all, but if you can muster the strength to push the blows aside then there is so much the community should be proud of and our podcast will shine a spotlight on it all. We’ll share success and hope at a time when it is much needed and provide the advice that will help you navigate the future.

It’s worth reminding yourself how important the community is:

  • You contribute £2.2bn in productivity every year
  • Your expertise and experience is vital. Take the UK’s engineering and defence sector, it’s global status would not be where it is without the help of skilled consultants
  • Specialist project managers are helping the UK’s biggest companies deliver strategic projects cutting through the red tape – and boy do we need that skill with Brexit around the corner
  • Small businesses and scale ups like ours rely on you to get us through busy periods, times of change and develop their brands
  • The examples go on from pharmaceutical research to DevOps, HR to internal communications. You are all delivering incredible value to the clients you work with. The rapid u-turns clients all made when IR35 was delayed is a huge nod to this

I believe this all adds up to reasons to stand tall. Be proud. IR35 is a large bump in the road but by being prepared you can continue.

Helping you stay alert

There are plenty of recruiters, agencies and umbrellas that have shown what they are made of during the last six months – good and bad. Some have gone above and beyond to provide help to contractors, while others have protected profits.

In future episodes we’ll take a look at what this all means for consultants and ask pressing questions like, whether a shake up on umbrellas is needed – are they even relevant any more? We’ll look at the future of work, review the major reports you need to know about, deep dive into CEST, right through to providing advice on how to open up conversations with clients so you are in control of your future.

A format that works for you

We’ll run podcasts every couple of weeks. They’ll last around 20 minutes. Expect entertaining conversation and interviews with people who have succeeded in navigating an outside IR35 path and are proud to say they are independent.

How do I get it?

Listen and subscribe here and follow us on LinkedIn for updates or to share your ideas on what we should cover. We want this to be as much your podcast as it is ours.