Got my licence and CPC card back today after passing Class C 2 weeks ago, have applied for a few jobs recently, one was advertised between £550-£650 a week, sounded good so applied. The agency phoned me up, told me about the job then said it was £9 an hour (thats not what they were advertising)…Anyway before we started talking further I told her that I was still waiting for licence and CPC card to come back from DVLA and she said they need some one now so had to let that one go.
Got to go and register with an another agency tomorrow re a job I applied for at £11.50 an hour, am I pretty safe to say this is not what I’m gonna get offered once their and signed up? Not used agencies before, is this how they operate?
2nd Question, some jobs advertised at £■■■ per week, some by the hour, generally speaking if its a weekly amount are you unlikely to get overtime? If it’s hourly then paid up until you finish??
Been out of the job hunting loop for quite a few years as you can probably tell
As an agency driver, get anything they say to you about pay in writing. Its a lot harder for them to worm their way out of it that way. Yes, everything agnecies will tell you is BS but don’t let that stop you. You will get the crap jobs when you start but once you build yourself up as someone they can count on then you can start pushing them.
You may get the hourly rate but look out for the schemes the parasite will ask to sign you up for as some of them can lower your wage and you have no holiday, pension and absolutely no rights for unfair dismissal.
an example of my previous paylip
standard rate £10
actually paid £7.42
Minimum wage payed
Ni, Tax reduced rate decucted
COMPANY NI deducted
Holiday and Bonus payed
Account Management fee
bob96:
You may get the hourly rate but look out for the schemes the parasite will ask to sign you up for as some of them can lower your wage and you have no holiday, pension and absolutely no rights for unfair dismissal.
an example of my previous paylip
standard rate £10
actually paid £7.42
Minimum wage payed
Ni, Tax reduced rate decucted
COMPANY NI deducted
Holiday and Bonus payed
Account Management fee
Before you get to rates with an agency you need to work out if the advert is for real work or if they are fishing. 95% of agency adverts are fishing. They need drivers on their books so they can then sell coverage to their haulier clients. It’s the way of the world in haulage nowdays.
Before you registar, ask where the work is and ask them to name the company. If they have genuine work available they will tell you as they need you to work to cover shifts. If they are fishing its not hard to smell the bs. Telling you after you registar is bs, they have targets to hit in signing on drivers and will do it if they have no work to offer.
Playing the agency game takes a while to master. There are plenty of helpful agency drivers on here who will help, do a search there is loads of info.
Just one golden rule, never never sign up to an umbrella scheme. Get an agency who will do paye or go ltd.
calsdad:
Before you get to rates with an agency you need to work out if the advert is for real work or if they are fishing. 95% of agency adverts are fishing. They need drivers on their books so they can then sell coverage to their haulier clients. It’s the way of the world in haulage nowdays.
Before you registar, ask where the work is and ask them to name the company. If they have genuine work available they will tell you as they need you to work to cover shifts. If they are fishing its not hard to smell the bs. Telling you after you registar is bs, they have targets to hit in signing on drivers and will do it if they have no work to offer.
Playing the agency game takes a while to master. There are plenty of helpful agency drivers on here who will help, do a search there is loads of info.
Just one golden rule, never never sign up to an umbrella scheme. Get an agency who will do paye or go ltd.
They in my experience will never tell you the company in question until you’ve signed up. Its the carrot and stick approach.
They have actually told me the company who the job is for BUT did also say they had taken on a driver. After (evidently) speaking to his client he did also say they needed another driver once the first guy was trained up and this would be a week or so. Then he asked me to go down to his office and sign up. All sounds good so hoping it is. I’ll report back later after I’ve seen him
So need to be sure the hourly rate is what I will be being paid and any holiday pay, bonuses etc…
bob96:
You may get the hourly rate but look out for the schemes the parasite will ask to sign you up for as some of them can lower your wage and you have no holiday, pension and absolutely no rights for unfair dismissal.
an example of my previous paylip
standard rate £10
actually paid £7.42
Minimum wage payed
Ni, Tax reduced rate decucted
COMPANY NI deducted
Holiday and Bonus payed
Account Management fee
Sounds like an umbrella company Bob, which you will be better off with if you claim the expenses you’re entitled to. So you pay less tax but no holiday pay etc…LTD is even better, 10% tax and NI exempt, love it.
Got a start date, they seem to have plenty of work (time will tell) so it should be ongoing with the company. They did want me to sign up to an umbrella, this was the the £11.50 they were advertising. Don’t really know anything about the umbrella’s so declined and elected for PAYE at £10 per hour. Going by what I’ve read now I think this is probably the right move.
calsdad:
Before you get to rates with an agency you need to work out if the advert is for real work or if they are fishing. 95% of agency adverts are fishing. They need drivers on their books so they can then sell coverage to their haulier clients. It’s the way of the world in haulage nowdays.
Before you registar, ask where the work is and ask them to name the company. If they have genuine work available they will tell you as they need you to work to cover shifts. If they are fishing its not hard to smell the bs. Telling you after you registar is bs, they have targets to hit in signing on drivers and will do it if they have no work to offer.
Playing the agency game takes a while to master. There are plenty of helpful agency drivers on here who will help, do a search there is loads of info.
Just one golden rule, never never sign up to an umbrella scheme. Get an agency who will do paye or go ltd.
Totally agree with all of this its excellent advice.
Never let an agency fob you off by saying “we can’t tell you over the phone who the company is due to client confidentiality, you’ll have to come in and register first before we tell you” As calsdad says if they say this then avoid because in all likelihood they just want you as a number on the books to sell themselves to potential clients. The ones who have genuine work will eventually tell you if you push them enough.
I love stumping agencies when they’ve thrown that line at me in the past by asking why the client confidentiality rule changes once I’m in their office compared to speaking on the phone. I then follow it up by stating in the real world no sane person would turn up for a job interview without actually knowing the company or organisation they were going too. Ironically they never have an answer to that. I love it further when I tell them if they won’t tell me I’m not interested “goodbye” and more often than not they ring back a few mins later with said info (well the ones who are not just fishing for numbers anyway)
bob96:
You may get the hourly rate but look out for the schemes the parasite will ask to sign you up for as some of them can lower your wage and you have no holiday, pension and absolutely no rights for unfair dismissal.
an example of my previous paylip
standard rate £10
actually paid £7.42
Minimum wage payed
Ni, Tax reduced rate decucted
COMPANY NI deducted
Holiday and Bonus payed
Account Management fee
Sounds like an umbrella company Bob, which you will be better off with if you claim the expenses you’re entitled to. So you pay less tax but no holiday pay etc…LTD is even better, 10% tax and NI exempt, love it.
bob96:
You may get the hourly rate but look out for the schemes the parasite will ask to sign you up for as some of them can lower your wage and you have no holiday, pension and absolutely no rights for unfair dismissal.
an example of my previous paylip
standard rate £10
actually paid £7.42
Minimum wage payed
Ni, Tax reduced rate decucted
COMPANY NI deducted
Holiday and Bonus payed
Account Management fee
Sounds like an umbrella company Bob, which you will be better off with if you claim the expenses you’re entitled to. So you pay less tax but no holiday pay etc…LTD is even better, 10% tax and NI exempt, love it.
Hi matt, did you go Ltd co.?
Cheers
Yes mate, all you have to do is fill out a few forms and the umbrella company do the rest. They take a small fee each week for doing your invoicing and tax return and you pay 10% tax, and are NI exempt. If you can stay busy and don’t mind saving for your holidays and pension instead of getting holiday pay I’d recommend it. It’s not for everyone but you can switch back whenever you want.
bob96:
You may get the hourly rate but look out for the schemes the parasite will ask to sign you up for as some of them can lower your wage and you have no holiday, pension and absolutely no rights for unfair dismissal.
an example of my previous paylip
standard rate £10
actually paid £7.42
Minimum wage payed
Ni, Tax reduced rate decucted
COMPANY NI deducted
Holiday and Bonus payed
Account Management fee
Sounds like an umbrella company Bob, which you will be better off with if you claim the expenses you’re entitled to. So you pay less tax but no holiday pay etc…LTD is even better, 10% tax and NI exempt, love it.
Hi matt, did you go Ltd co.?
Cheers
Yes mate, all you have to do is fill out a few forms and the umbrella company do the rest. They take a small fee each week for doing your invoicing and tax return and you pay 10% tax, and are NI exempt. If you can stay busy and don’t mind saving for your holidays and pension instead of getting holiday pay I’d recommend it. It’s not for everyone but you can switch back whenever you want.
Be aware that Umbrella Company is not a LTD company.
There is no such thing as a 10% tax rate for a limited company. 10% tax credit on dividends maybee but this is very different from 10% tax as you will have already paid 20% corporation tax.
As I have said before going limited is great but I believe you have to spend the time understanding it yourself using the hmrc guides. Paying a fee to get it sorted just doesn’t make sense, you lose a big % of the benefit of being limited in the fees you pay. Thing that would worry me is someone else completing your legal paperwork and returns and just trusting them. Odds are they are knowhere to be seen when the hmrc comes knocking. At that point will you be able to answer the questions and provide the legally required information…
bob96:
You may get the hourly rate but look out for the schemes the parasite will ask to sign you up for as some of them can lower your wage and you have no holiday, pension and absolutely no rights for unfair dismissal.
an example of my previous paylip
standard rate £10
actually paid £7.42
Minimum wage payed
Ni, Tax reduced rate decucted
COMPANY NI deducted
Holiday and Bonus payed
Account Management fee
Sounds like an umbrella company Bob, which you will be better off with if you claim the expenses you’re entitled to. So you pay less tax but no holiday pay etc…LTD is even better, 10% tax and NI exempt, love it.
Hi matt, did you go Ltd co.?
Cheers
Yes mate, all you have to do is fill out a few forms and the umbrella company do the rest. They take a small fee each week for doing your invoicing and tax return and you pay 10% tax, and are NI exempt. If you can stay busy and don’t mind saving for your holidays and pension instead of getting holiday pay I’d recommend it. It’s not for everyone but you can switch back whenever you want.
You’re right. Another part of the company which operated the umbrella company I originally signed up with now manage the invoicing for my ltd company, hope that’s clearer.
calsdad:
There is no such thing as a 10% tax rate for a limited company. 10% tax credit on dividends maybee but this is very different from 10% tax as you will have already paid 20% corporation tax.
I take minimum salary and the rest as dividends, therefore no income tax on personal allowance and 10% on the dividends, so I will pay approximately 10% income tax.
there is an article the jan 2015 edition of truckstop news giving information regarding paye , umbrella schemes and going ltd that some may find useful .
5% of wage deducted for admin fees is not a small deduction .umbrella companies all take the biscuit too. that percentage varies depending on which umbrella company deals with the agency . you can bet your life if the agency is offering the same jobs all year round its a crap firm that expects to much for there coin and cant retain drivers for more than couple of weeks at a time. i have had my fair share of dealings with them since getting my class 2 licence . jark we refer to as jerk recruitment, abacus , drivers direct pay crap, klr always paid well . contract options were idiots and full of b/s . good luck .
All made interesting reading, told them I want to be paid PAYE as apart from a couple of short non driver jobs (a number of years ago) I’ve never really worked for an agency and ideally don’t really want to do agency work but happy to as a start to gain some experience.
