Benched Because of IR35

When your in your 50's your supposed to be making the highest economic impact, because you have reached a knowledge and expertise level that commands a high salary or commercial fee. For me IR35 has killed that possibility in the UK.

Karl's Way of Working

To understand why this has happened I should explain how I work. For over 20 years I have gone where the work is and not been focused on it coming to my geographic location. Effectively I have been a Work Nomad, a person who moves from place to place rather than settling down to work in one area. I have used work to explore the planet and learn about other cultures while at the same time learning about differing work practices in cultural context with the same naming. I love to travel and learn, to expand my perspective on what it means to be human and to evolve my thinking on how to work and become a better version of myself. This knowledge base is impossible to express on a CV even though it is fundamental to my practice of New Ways of Working, Human-Centered Design and how I engage within client organisations.

I have travelled or worked with people from the USA, Mexico, Brazil, UK, Ireland, Sweden, France, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Brussels, Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, Ukraine, Madagascar, South Africa, India, China, Pearl River Delta, Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, The Caribbean, Australia.

My working practices are strongly linked to my goals and objectives, how I plan to work and what I will gain and why. I'm not actually focused on money, I'm focused on financial freedom, so the amounts involved are not the critical path but rather how they are used and support my way of working.

Financial Realism

My personal financial goals are very closely linked to my marriage as our goals and expectations of life were set at an early point in both our lives by our upbringing. Our main goal in life is happiness and not riches. We decided early on to not making money a stressor, I had seen family members lose their home through negative equity in the 1990's and never tried to leverage our incomes to the highest level. Our rule was that rent and then later a mortgage should not be be more than 30-50% of one persons income. This behaviour has insulated us from some horrible experiences that we know friends and colleague's have experience over the years.

Why I'm Benched

IR35 has been widely adopted in the UK to cover all contract work, although it only really covers contracts over two years and more or work that is constructed like an employee engagement (detailed directives not outcomes) rather than contracted services (outcomes not detailed directives) etc. To prove their IR35 status, contractors need evidence such as a written contract, statements of work, and any additional agreements, as well as an understanding of the nature of their relationship with the client and how it is managed, to demonstrate that they are not subject to IR35 rules. A quick check is available here (its not associated with me I found it on Google) Status Determination Statements.

IR35 essentially means I can't claim expenses, so for work that requires me to be on site, unless the end client will accept the additional cost of my travel, I end up working for nothing. Before IR35 I would spend 30-50% of my contract on travel, accommodation and sustenance all supporting the wider economy, now I cannot do that.

Other Options

There do appear to be contracts outside of IR35 but they must be hugely oversubscribed. I'm working on a few other projects of my own including building a new social media data model, but these things are rather long term. Since I hold dual nationality I can still work in Europe also, so I may just work there instead of the UK.