Salary, Tax and National Insurance
All UK salaries should be agreed as a gross wage, not a net wage because HMRC only deal with gross salaries and both client and candidate can lose out if dealing only in net figures. Your net wage is what you have once your tax and NI have been deducted. Your employer is required by law to state their responsibility to deduct tax and NI and pay it to HMRC, if they don’t do this it will affect your right to claim future state entitlements and you could find yourself out of a job due to a misunderstanding of deductions / contributions in terms of the employer paying too much tax.
All UK workers must have a NI number. To work out your take home or pro-rata wage, please click here.
Hours of work, holiday entitlement and sickness leave
In your contract it should state what your expected hours of work are to be. Make sure you are happy with the proposed hours and that you understand when your allocated time off is, ie weekends/evenings. If you are unsure of anything speak to your employer as soon as possible.
If the employer asks for occasional babysitting, have a clear understanding if this is once or three times a month. Your employer should also state in your contract your holiday entitlement. This, in accordance with the European Working Time Directive, allows all employees the right to a minimum of 5.6 weeks paid holiday per year or 28 days if on a five day week, this is inclusive of bank holidays. Holiday is also calculated on a pro-rata basis.
Your contract should include some information on SSP (Statutory Sick Pay) in accordance with the employer’s normal rates of pay or GOV.UK. This is normally paid at £92.05 for up to 28 weeks. To qualify for SSP you must have been off work for more than four days in a row.
If you would like to know more about holiday, sickness leave, maternity or paternity pay, please follow this link to the GOV.UK website in the first instance.
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