freelance questiion
polycount lvl 666
jsut wondered guys if anyo of you have freelancing experience in the uk.
I was basically wondering if I should go for a short term contract as a company employee or freelance , doing all my tax returns myself. Is there any real advantage by doing the latter(financially)?
also, do you think the sort of work you are doing will pigeon hole you straight away.
as a freelancer, you don't tend to get the 'high end' stuff to do, its more the finishing off work in a project.
any advice gratefully accepted:)
I was basically wondering if I should go for a short term contract as a company employee or freelance , doing all my tax returns myself. Is there any real advantage by doing the latter(financially)?
also, do you think the sort of work you are doing will pigeon hole you straight away.
as a freelancer, you don't tend to get the 'high end' stuff to do, its more the finishing off work in a project.
any advice gratefully accepted:)
Replies
In my experience you can make a lot of money in a short time by freelancing, but then equally you can find yourself without much to do for a while, it depends how organised you are and how good your contacts are. If you're well organised and keep the projects flowing smoothly, you can probably make a lot more money working the same hours as you would in-house.
Obviously the downsides are that you don't have quite the same security of a salary (game industry job security heh), and you don't get any company benefits like healthcare, insurance and various other perks.
The tax side of it isn't too tricky as long as you keep good records and stay organised.
Obviously I can't say too much about this contract, but I think i will go for it, just depends on the advice I receive today.
I thought being a sole trader would be the best way, but you can get more tax relief being a limited comnpany.
This stuff is all new to me, but hopefully I will have a lot more idea by tonight.
yeah health care stuff doesn't worrry me as I am rarely ill and they almost never offer you dental:)
Good luck Ruz, I take it living in the north is`nt happening?
Yeah you have to keep on applying. I have sent of about 10 enquiries, got 2 replies:)
They've changed the rules a bit in the UK since I was doing it. My advice is to get hooked up with a good agency, not sure what ones exist for games but in london you should certainly call the normal games recruitment agencies and see what they do about contract employees / freelancers.
I made a decent slice working freelance on location and at home in the UK. In any case, you need to register as a sole trader to work for agencies now, because of the new tax system.
Also this is largely dependent on the contract you are going for currently; span, hours, rate etc.
The sort of work you do rarely gets you stuck doing the same thing, I would say its more the opposite in my experience.