I recently stumbled across an increasingly popular practice (mainly in the US, though finding its way over here) dubbed “Overemployed”. It essentially boils down to workers having multiple jobs without their employers being aware of the fact.
These multiple jobs run concurrently, i.e., the worker will manage to work for multiple employers during the same hours e.g., 9-5.
Many people that do this don’t even bother to inform HMRC, which I suppose they needn’t do as whether they’ve underpaid/overpaid tax, it will be addressed by HMRC at the end of the year.
Have any people here gone down this route? How did you find it?
Suffice to say, it’s perfectly legal to do this though most companies prohibit doing it, thus you would be in breach of your contract and may be dismissed if they found out.
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“Increasingly popular”? Or “saw a TikTok saying a friend had done it once”?
The difficulty with this is your tax code.
If you keep your full allowance with one job your other will be BR and if you split it that would be noticeable by payroll.
Would payroll flag it?
Who knows.
You could have a PAYE job and be self-employed which is less risky.
Not worth it.
Increasingly popular may not be the best term to use for many it is a necessity
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*edit: removed an extra ‘it is’*
Would like to, but as a programmer we have too many meetings, and I don’t fancy trying to explain that I can’t have two standups every day at the same time with 2 companies lol
It would be detected here and investigated as tax fraud. Our data is shared by employers as part of the National Fraud Initiative.
I worked with someone who appeared to be doing this, the idiot didn’t go on mute in a meeting and answered a call from what appeared to be his other employers. Funnily enough he doesn’t work with us anymore.
I can’t even be bothered to do the one job that I have never mind another on top of that
Depends who’s asking 🤷♂️
But hypothetically, if you had recently started a new job where your predecessor was a technophobe, and you went in and automated 90% of the workload without telling anyone (since they only care that the work is done), then yes, this would be very possible.
In fact, if you managed to do that with both jobs, you’d actually find that you spend very little time working at all.
It might be possible if you were contracting, day rates often don’t specify how many hours you work. If you’re doing a job you’re really good at you might be able to do what’s perceived as a days work in half a day and can do both.
I do know of someone who did – she got found guilty of fraud and sentenced to community service
2 full-time employement PAYE jobs – no, but I do spend an hour or so a day doing other additional income activities. This can range from managing Ebay listings to taking part in paid market research, doing marketing/admin for my wife’s business. Probably earning an extra few hundred a month with little effort.
I have done a bit of consultancy of late, but tend to work evenings/take annual leave to do this.
I have my full-time job and have two startups on the go. Probably wouldn’t do 2xFT employment though, that’s a bit much.
HMRC would quickly become aware as the employers would both be sending their payroll details to HMRC after each payroll period.
It’s really not worth it here. It’s very likely here that one job finds out you’re doing it and you lose that job. Yeah you’ll still have the other job but there’s also the possibility that that both jobs find out and you end up unemployed.
If you do get away with it, you’re also taking up a job that someone else could be doing which is a bit of a dick move imo.
HMRC will know because your employers will submit your earnings and taxes on your behalf through PAYE.
Your employers will get your tax codes from HMRC and only one will have your allowance allocated so additional employers will probably become aware that there’s other employment when they get a tax code with no allowance.
You could potentially get around the above by being a contractor and working under an umbrella company and invoicing the companies rather then being an employee.
Also, I think this may go beyond a breach of contract if you are knowingly taking money from an employer to provide a service with no intention of fully providing that service. This does go into the realms of criminality.
What you say is correct (including that it’s likely in breach of your contracts and a dismissible offence). It’s just one of the reasons why so many employers are pressuring for a return to the office. The more widespread and widely-known this practice becomes, the fewer wfh jobs are going to be available and/or the more monitoring (eg lengthy or frequent Zoom calls) will be applied. In a couple of years time, this practice will be a lot harder to get away with than it is now.
I’ve never known anyone work two theoretically full time PAYE jobs at once. Sounds nuts, and fairly inefficient.
I’ve known several people with a full time PAYE job who had enough free time to pick up small contracts round the side.
I knew a guy who set up his own brewery while working full time as an accountant (he got found out in the end, company wasn’t happy, and the brewery went bust too)
I’ve been doing it for a few years back in 2013, J1 was my main field, J2 was a junior role in another industry for a bit of variety of which i automated a fair amount if it. J2 was unaware of J1, they both got frequent letters from hmrc for tax code changes. I salary sacrificed from J1 quite a bit.
J1 was aware I was doing side work on J2, didn’t like the fact I was doing it, but I said the alternative was to quit. J1 also tried to increase my work load so J2 became unbearable at 1 stage (till I Automated j2).
Eventually J1 let up, when i implied that i had noticed that increasing workload to tryband get me to drop j2 would not work other than making me leave J1 quicker. So they somewhat gave me the freedom as long as I continued to deliver. J2 was unaware, all they saw was work being delivered well and in a timely manner.
I then quit J1+J2 and setup my own Ltd, which has multiple clients & projects all overlapping. Ive hired subcontractors based on what I need support with from peers of employers past, who want their own J2.
I know people in the contracting world who’ve managed to start on a new contract before finally finishing the old one hence being paid twice.
I’d say soon that loophole will be closed and all WFH will have to sign a restraint form.