I've recently been attempting to win new business for my consultancy by looking at advertised contract roles. By following these leads I have an offer of a 12 month contract to work as a freelance contractor at a day rate of £300/day (my current salary is £32000). The contract is likely to be extended until 2016 as long as I'm able to deliver. My dilemma is that I do not want to leave my current role but the higher salary is a massive temptation. I'm thinking of approaching my director and asking if my employment contract could be altered to 22.5 hours a week instead of 37.5 hours. This would allow me to work the contract 5 days a week at £300/day and then I'd have to put in an extra 22.5 hours to carry out my current workload. (I have 3 years of project work secured in my current role). I find in my current role that on average I'm utilised 3 days a week. The other 2 days are generally spent on helping out with proposal work / other non specialist tasks. I would accept a paycut to 3/5 of my current salary and still carry out the same billable hours. The only issue I can see is that I will not be able to work during the standard core hour times.Has anyone ever been in a similar situation? Or does anyone have any advice?

Quite possibly one of the silliest ideas I've ever came across in my life.Your maths does not work out at all - how can you work your current job doing 22.5 hours whilst doing a full time job ?

That seems an incredibly low day rate! But aside from that I do know some contractors at my current client who book 37.5 hours to them, whilst also doing 10 - 20 hours for another unrelated client.In fact I was sit with one in the airport just this week when he took a call talking to someone about telecoms in Taiwan (when our client in a British defence contractor!). He explained that due to the flexibility of both clients, he was able to book full time to one whilst doing 15 hours for the other. Mainly by weekend working and cramming all his 37 hours in for one client by Thursday each week.However if you did not have such a flexible client, who wanted lots of FaceTime with you, I imagine this would be a difficult thing to juggle. So it is certainly possible...

[quote]That seems an incredibly low day rate![/quote]Seems like quite a good rate compared to his 32k salary?

The day rate would be £300 minimum. I'm currently working remotely in my current position so there is little need for facetime/person to person meetings. I could easily fit in an extra 22.5hours a week on top of the 37.5hours for the contract. The contract work would involve working away from home a few days a week so I'd happily do this in hotel / second home.I'm still in negotiation regarding day rate and expenses for the contract role and am aware that similar roles have a potential to pay up to £600/month. What is the best way to justify a higher rate?

[quote]Quite possibly one of the silliest ideas I've ever came across in my life.Your maths does not work out at all - how can you work your current job doing 22.5 hours whilst doing a full time job ?[/quote]37.5 + 22.5 = 60 hours22.5 hours can be done by working remotely...Last time I checked there were 168 hours in a week...Maths make complete sense to me.

Driftyfifty,The warning bells in my head are giving me a headache - please make them stop!1. Trying to win new business for a consultancy by chasing contract ads? If I heard of a consultancy firm that desperate for business (or thinking that such an approach would get them face time with senior consultancy buying clients) then I'd run a mile.2. £300 a day in the contract market is a "commodity" level rate; a very junior BA or PMO position in London, or a mid-level BA or PMO outside of London. At that level, the risk you run is not whether you can deliver or not, but a huge number of exogenous factors that might lead the project to being canned etc. Being rubbish will get you fired, but being good will not be enough in itself to keep you billing.3. Most employers expect their junior staff to work their agreed hours and then put any extra effort/energy they have spare, into further work FOR THEIR EMPLOYER. Its how you get promoted and stop being junior. If you moonlight on a contract instead, then you're basically saying that you don't really want a career with your current employer.4. Frankly, most contract clients expect the same! Yeah, I know - you're self-employed and can work at multiple sites, etc - great in theory - rare in practice, particularly at the junior end of the contract market (see £300 point above).5. Logistically you'd be screwed within a few weeks. I reckon your head would explode with the stress. In the meantime all your colleagues (from both jobs) would have to alter their method of working to accommodate your diary commitments.6. Why on earth would your Director (or the contract client) agree to this? what's in it for them? 7. Why don't you just take a part time job as a Formula 1 driver. From what I can see they only race on Sundays (you could get one of the test drivers to do the Saturday qualifying for you) and they earn a few million a year...?

[quote]Driftyfifty,The warning bells in my head are giving me a headache - please make them stop!1. Trying to win new business for a consultancy by chasing contract ads? If I heard of a consultancy firm that desperate for business (or thinking that such an approach would get them face time with senior consultancy buying clients) then I'd run a mile.It was agreed to more out of speculation than anything... under the principle - what is the worst that could happen.2. £300 a day in the contract market is a "commodity" level rate; a very junior BA or PMO position in London, or a mid-level BA or PMO outside of London. At that level, the risk you run is not whether you can deliver or not, but a huge number of exogenous factors that might lead the project to being canned etc. Being rubbish will get you fired, but being good will not be enough in itself to keep you billing.The work is relatively easy and is considered somewhat a niche area where I have good experience.3. Most employers expect their junior staff to work their agreed hours and then put any extra effort/energy they have spare, into further work FOR THEIR EMPLOYER. Its how you get promoted and stop being junior. If you moonlight on a contract instead, then you're basically saying that you don't really want a career with your current employer.This would be good project experience on the CV as it's a large project I'd be contracting on.4. Frankly, most contract clients expect the same! Yeah, I know - you're self-employed and can work at multiple sites, etc - great in theory - rare in practice, particularly at the junior end of the contract market (see £300 point above)....5. Logistically you'd be screwed within a few weeks. I reckon your head would explode with the stress. In the meantime all your colleagues (from both jobs) would have to alter their method of working to accommodate your diary commitments.I can carry out current workload for my employer from any location. I'd only need to be on site for contract. The only adjustment is my work for current employer would be done outside of core 9-5 working hours (not a massive problem given my workload).6. Why on earth would your Director (or the contract client) agree to this? what's in it for them? The director keeps my services and pays me 3/5 as much for booking 3/5 as much time. Since my utilisation is around 60% this is quite an appealing proposition for any director who has a business mind. Has nothing to do with contract client I wouldn't even have to tell them as it's outside of the time I'd be contracted towards.7. Why don't you just take a part time job as a Formula 1 driver. From what I can see they only race on Sundays (you could get one of the test drivers to do the Saturday qualifying for you) and they earn a few million a year...?Nice idea. Might give it a try if this doesn't work out.[/quote]

Drifty,There's no need to be defensive, people like Coolio have been in the contracting market for many years and have seen people with your ideas come and go. So have I.You basically want to work 2 jobs which if I'm honest can actually function for certain areas of contracting - comms is one area where I have seen it work well.But do remember the pitfalls - - Each employer will expect to be treated as number 1 priority if he suddenly needs more of your time- We all expect you to do more than just x days a week. Saying there's "too much work" won't wash - You are one of the first to be dumped. Out of sight out of mind and all thatBut it does mean you have your hand in more pies and if you are confident that your area of work is more suited to less days a week for clients, then go for itCoolio; you should remember that having one client only and just doing work for them can land you in trouble. It actually is good to try and do more with your Ltd company hence in a way Drifty will put his Ltd company in a good position tax wise.

Anon- Yes, in theory, but my point 4 reflects the reality that most (though not all) contracts effectively need the contractor to commit full time to the role.Also from an IR35 perspective, having multiple clients at the one time is not that useful - HMRC will look at the wording of each individual contract, not the mere existence of multiple ones. After all, many people have more then one job (e.g. Teacher that does a few shifts as a barman). Those people are deemed employees, not self-employed.The OP would be both employed AND self employed. The tax benefits of the self employment income would be greatly eroded by the employment income, though still additional cash.

Alright smarty pants, I agree with you even if I don't really want to.However, from my accountants point of view it still looks far better if you have multiple workstreams rather than just one. This makes sense I think.

Just make sure you don't burn yourself out... doing 1 consultancy job can be the equivalent of doing 1.5 "real" jobs in terms of "wear and tear" on one's sanity. Doing 1.5 consultancy jobs is more like doing 2.25 "real jobs". That's a whole lotta work....

Ha ha! I don't even want to agree with myself on that one! Juicy can be sure that if I was ever challenged on IR35 I'd be including my occasional multi-client work periods in my rebuttal too.The more pertinent point is that the OP is attracted by what he sees as easy-ish cash, but ignores the practicality. His response to my response suggests that he's got life all sorted out.Good luck to him.