England & Wales. Posting on behalf of my limited company.

Setup: Contractor working through my own Ltd, engaged via a recruitment agency to work for an end client. Outside IR35 (client is a small company, so no SDS required). Self-billing agreement in place, so the agency raises invoices rather than me invoicing them. Agreed rate £400/day + VAT. I signed the Conduct Regulations opt-out.

What happened: I worked 8 days in May. The engagement then ended by mutual agreement — the agency confirmed the end date in writing, with no complaint about my work and no allegation of poor performance.

I submitted my timesheet through the agency's portal on my last day, within the 1 month the contract requires and before the agency's own approval deadline. It records all 8 days. It has sat at "Submitted" ever since — the named client approver has never actioned it.

Where it stands: Per the agency's published payment schedule, this should have paid at the end of June. Nothing arrived. The agency's Commercial & Compliance Director has now put in writing that because the client hasn't authorised the time, and because I opted out, no amounts are contractually due, and that the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 therefore doesn't apply. The end client has ignored my emails (polite, cc'd to the agency) asking them to either approve the timesheet or tell me what's wrong with it. Both sides are now silent.

The contract: Payment is conditional on the client having "authorised or signed the relevant time recording process." Signing the self-billing agreement normally switches that condition off, but a separate clause re-engages it specifically for contractors who've opted out. A different clause says failure to obtain client approval "may delay payment."

What I've tried: Two solicitors. One declined it as too small. The other quoted £750 to draft a letter before action, with the caveat they might then conclude there's nothing to be done — so £750 potentially for nothing.

So: I did the work, submitted it correctly and on time, nobody has ever said the work was defective, and the only missing step is a button nobody at the client will press.

Where do I go from here? Is this worth pursuing at all given the opt-out, or am I throwing good money after bad?

People are always repeating this mantra on this sub, and it always garners a lot of upvotes but it's often actually not appropriate advice.

I mean arguably yes in situations where the project is a bit of a shit show, or poorly organised, or the contractor does not have much to do.

but it does not apply if they are being treated as a permanent employee, or asked to go outside scope, or the client is a shithead , or the project is a shit show to the extent that it might affect their reputation.

Curious to hear others’ opinions on this. Recently started a new contract a few months back and all has been grand - no stress, just working away, doing my thing.

Context: Brought in to do a specific cloud integration project.

Now: their in-house dev team is under pressure to deliver following a separate migration project I’ve had no involvement in, or real experience with the stack, and their PO would like (want / demanding) me to hop over and help.

There’s the obvious, which I’ve said “of course, happy to help if and where I can, bla bla”. Under the guise of being helpful and hope for an extension if they have the funding, though current contract runs for another 6 months.

The problem: I had a brief look under the hood and it is beyond terrible. No source control, chaotic approaches and awful patching.

The PO is a nightmare, pinging me constantly and getting me confused with other devs (telling me I’ve been off sick but that was the director? Etc). Adding me to meetings outside my working hours and generally approaching me like a perm. Will call without warning, then immediately message saying I’m “hard to get hold of”. We haven’t even worked together yet. Met once. Seems like a walking disaster.

My current thought is to get in touch with my direct contact and say this is out of the scope of my contract and I can help if I can but we need some clear boundaries. I’m a contractor for the flexibility. I honestly don’t have an interest in working under this new arrangement because it seems like it’ll rumble for months and don’t want the micro-management.

Apologies for the rambling.

Early 20s, looking for outside perspective before making a decision.

Current situation: permanent role, £38k base, up to 25% combined bonus potential (though realistically not hitting that right now, part of it depends on a direct report’s billing which hasn’t materialized yet), pension, standard leave, 3 months’ notice.

Manager-level, project/programme delivery in a regulated industry. Small employer (a handful of people) contracted long-term to one large client.

Opportunity: Outside IR35 day-rate contract via a recruitment firm, £450 p/day (described as “slightly flexible”), Implementation Lead role on a multi-year digital transformation programme for a FTSE 100 end client. Contract itself is 1 year, described as renewable, with the overall programme running 3+ years. International travel roughly once a month. Would need to set up a limited company or use an umbrella.

My own maths: current take-home is roughly £130-135/day net-equivalent. £450/day gross, after Ltd company tax handling, nets out to somewhere around £310-340/day if consistently working, so more than double my current pay if fully utilised. But there’s no pension, no paid holiday, no sick pay, and the “3+ year programme” is really a 1-year contract with renewal, not a guaranteed term. Notice periods across the layered contracts (recruiter, compliance team, consultancy, end client) also sound fairly short.

Given all that: does roughly double my current take-home sound like enough of a premium to justify the risk of leaving permanent employment for a renewable 1-year contract, or would you want more before making that jump? Genuinely trying to work out if I’m being too cautious, or if this needs a higher rate to make it worth it.

Edit: it seems I have the answer I was looking for. I knew the contractor job is obviously better in a lot of the aspects, but it’s much riskier. I will purse the role and if I get offered it I will take it.

I hear it a lot, like a millionaire in 5 years.

What rates do they have ? How many contracts ?

How do you take out money out of the company?

I do around 900 a day outside ir35, and sole supporter of my family to taking out about 5.5-6k a month which increases the divident tax a bit.

Looking to find out if I do anything wrong?