What actually changes for you when staff are PAYE?
The short version is that a set of employer obligations either sit with the agency or they sit somewhere else, and somewhere else is usually you.
When we supply staff, they are on our payroll. We run the pay runs, we pay the employer National Insurance, we hold the holiday pay liability, we check and document right to work, and we hold employers' liability and public liability insurance. You get an invoice for hours worked. Nothing about the person's tax position becomes your problem.
When staff are engaged as self-employed, most of that moves. The person is responsible for their own tax, which sounds simpler until the question is asked whether they were genuinely self-employed in the first place. That question does not get asked on the day. It gets asked later.
| Question | Supplied on PAYE | Engaged as self-employed |
|---|---|---|
| Who runs payroll | The agency | Nobody, the worker invoices |
| Who holds the holiday pay liability | The agency | Unresolved, and it does not disappear |
| Who checks and documents right to work | The agency | Whoever engaged them |
| Who carries the employment status risk | The agency | Whoever engaged them |
| Who insures the worker | The agency | Often nobody, check before you book |
| What happens on a no-show | Contractual remedy with the agency | You are short a person |
| What you see on the invoice | Hours, roles, dates | Varies by individual |
What does an hour of event staffing have to cover?
Here is the arithmetic at the 2026/27 statutory floor. This is the minimum, not what we actually pay. Rates are set individually and several people on our roster are paid above the floor, so the real figure is higher than this.
| Line | Per hour | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Wage at the National Living Wage | £12.71 | Aged 21 and over |
| Rolled-up holiday pay at 12.07 per cent | £1.53 | 5.6 weeks divided by 46.4 |
| Gross pay before employer costs | £14.24 | |
| Employer pension at 3 per cent | Up to £0.43 | Where auto-enrolment applies |
| Employer National Insurance at 15 per cent | £2.14 | Above £96 a week per person |
| Cost while the Employment Allowance holds | £14.67 | National Insurance covered |
| Cost once the allowance is used up | £16.81 | National Insurance payable in full |
| Our published charge rate | £19.00 | No booking fee, no uniform charge |
Two things are worth saying plainly about that table.
The National Insurance line does not always bite. The secondary threshold is £5,000 a year, which is £96 a week, so a person working one short shift in a week may fall under it. On a ten hour day they will not.
And the gap between the cost line and £19.00 is not margin. Insurance, the payroll itself and the cost of holding replacement cover all come out of it before anything is left. These figures are correct for 2026/27 and you should verify them on GOV.UK before relying on them. The holiday pay calculation is set out in the holiday entitlement guidance.
Our published rates and terms are on the client page, and the rate you are quoted is the rate on the invoice.
What happens when the Employment Allowance runs out?
Most write-ups of employer costs quietly assume the Employment Allowance is always there. It is not. It offsets up to £10,500 of employer National Insurance a year, and it is per business rather than per worker, so a busy year uses it up.
Work out where your own business lands. At £2.14 an hour of employer National Insurance, £10,500 covers roughly 4,900 hours of work a year, assuming each person's earnings clear the £5,000 threshold. A caterer running around 110 staff hours a week would use it up before the year is out, and every hour after that carries the full National Insurance line.
Two other things catch people. The allowance cannot be claimed where the only employee earning above the threshold is the sole director, which rules out a lot of one-person catering companies. And it resets each tax year, so a business that ran out in February is briefly cheap again in April and then is not.
None of this changes what you pay us. It changes what it costs you to do the same thing yourself, which is the comparison worth making before you decide.
Who is actually directing the work on your job?
This is the part most people skip, and it is the part that decides the answer.
On a typical hospitality booking, the client's team directs the work hour to hour, the venue provides the equipment, and staff are paid for a shift rather than a result.
Ask yourself the same three questions about your own bookings. Who decides what the person does hour to hour. Whose equipment are they using. Are they being paid for a result or for being there. If the honest answers are your chefs, your equipment and a shift, then the arrangement has the shape of employment regardless of what the paperwork calls it.
HMRC publishes a tool for exactly this. The Check Employment Status for Tax tool walks through the same questions and gives you a result you can keep. It takes about ten minutes and it is free.
That's why our hospitality staff are PAYE.
What should you ask before you book anyone?
This is not legal or tax advice, and it is not a substitute for it. If you are unsure about the status of people working on your events, ask an accountant or an employment solicitor. The questions below are the ones worth putting to whoever is supplying your staff.
- Are the people PAYE or self-employed, and can you see it in writing.
- Is holiday pay included in the rate, or does it arrive later as a liability.
- Who holds employers' liability and public liability insurance, and can you see the certificates.
- Who has checked and documented right to work, and where are those records kept.
- What is the written remedy if somebody does not turn up.
A supplier who cannot answer those quickly is telling you something.
What this means if you are booking staff
If you book hospitality staff through us, the answer to all five is the same. They are PAYE on zero-hours employment contracts, holiday pay is inside the rate at 12.07 per cent, we hold both insurances, we check right to work for everyone, and if somebody does not arrive we put a replacement on site within an hour, and with no replacement there is no charge for that shift.
If you engage people directly, none of that is automatic. It is still perfectly possible to do it properly, and for some jobs hiring direct is the cheaper answer. It is just work somebody has to do, and it is worth knowing who that somebody is before the event rather than after it.
Tell us the date, the venue and the roles, and we will come back with confirmed names. Enquire by 6pm, get confirmed names the same day. After 6pm, by 10am.