Becoming a self-employed carer

Genuinely self-employed — not a grey area

Every carer on Shiftium works as a self-employed independent contractor. There's no umbrella company, no disguised employment, and no path through the platform that works any other way — this isn't one option among several, it's how the whole model is built. You choose which shifts to apply for, Shiftium doesn't supervise your day-to-day work, and you're free to work with multiple providers, or even other platforms, at the same time. That's what makes it genuinely self-employed rather than employment with extra paperwork.

Registering with HMRC

If Shiftium is your first self-employed work, one of your first jobs is registering for Self Assessment with HMRC — this is what lets you report your income and pay tax on it, and it comes with a Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR) once you're registered. There's a deadline tied to when you start earning, so it's worth doing early rather than leaving it until tax season is already close.

The basics of what you'll owe

Self-employed income is taxed differently from a payslip — nothing is deducted before you're paid, so the full amount lands in your account and it's on you to have set enough aside by the time your bill is due. Two things typically apply: Income Tax on your profit above your Personal Allowance, and self-employed National Insurance, which works differently from the employed version.

You're taxed on profit, not total earnings — allowable expenses like travel between shifts, DBS check costs, and training fees all reduce what's actually taxable.

Where to go for the full detail

This page is the overview — the specifics live in a set of focused guides, each answering one part of this properly:

• Self-employed vs. employed: what it actually means for carers →
• What you need to register as a carer →
• Self-employed tax basics: what you owe and when →
• Setting aside money for tax as a self-employed carer →
• DBS checks for carers: what's required, and how to get one →