Umbrella
We’ve built our FCSA-accredited umbrella company around the needs of contractors.
We’re more than just an umbrella contracting company – we offer private pension options, statutory payments like SSP, insurance and other benefits like mental health support and high-street discounts.
Benefits
Our trustworthy contractor umbrella company gives contractors and temporary workers employed status, and we take care of your tax too.
Get a share of our profits.
As an employee of our contractor umbrella company, you are eligible for employee–ownership bonuses after you’ve been with us for a year. There’s no catch or added charges, and bonuses are totally Income Tax-free.
Our employees have made Sapphire what it is today, so consider the bonus as a ‘thank you’ for investing in us and fuelling our future growth.
Umbrella Platinum – for just £5 per week.
Our market-leading, FSCA-accredited Umbrella Platinum service offers a host of extra exciting benefits, not to mention invaluable peace of mind.
These include a comprehensive Health Cash Plan with Health Shield, personal accident cover with Aviva and an early advance service, so you can access up to £100 of your wage ahead of your usual payment date.
Trusted by thousands of contractors across the UK.
Our awards and accreditations
Got a question?
We’re more than happy to help.
Leave your details and an expert from our friendly team will give you a call back.
How much will you take home?
Whether you are employed or self-employed our handy calculator will give you an estimate of your weekly or monthly take-home pay.
We just need a few bits of information from you, and we’ll take it from there.
For help and advice on what your result means for you, get in touch with us today.
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Frequently Asked Questions
- Make sure you do thorough due diligence. Run background checks on the umbrella company.
- Do a Google search on them, read their online reviews.
- Ask for a full and transparent breakdown of all deductions.
- Check with your recruitment agency if they’ve heard of them or know them. Recruiters are mostly aware of all good and
- bad umbrella companies, so they should be able to help.
- Read your employment contract.
- Check the umbrella company’s details on Companies House and look up their financial position, trading history etc.
- Be sure to check the official FCSA website, where you will find a list of all accredited members.
You need to be careful when choosing an umbrella company, as some companies are non-compliant. These companies are on the rise, and many contractors fall victim to their schemes.
Don’t worry though, we are here to make sure that doesn’t happen to you. We’ll show you how to spot a non-compliant umbrella company and avoid them.
The margin is the amount we retain from the invoices raised for your work. We only retain one fixed margin per week or month, depending on your pay frequency.
As a contractor using Sapphire, you are an employee and therefore entitled to a share of our company profits. This means when you have worked with us for over one year, you can receive a share of our annual profit bonus.
When you decide to use Sapphire to take care of your payroll needs, you agree to a Contract of Employment and are therefore employed by us.
An umbrella company employs you and pays your wages as a temporary worker. Although the umbrella company pays you, the work you do will be found via your recruitment agency.
Sapphire is an intermediary between you, the contractor, and your agency. Sapphire’s role as an umbrella company is to manage timesheets and NI contributions, oversee the calculation of PAYE tax, and make sure your payslips are sent out.
There are tell-tale signs when it comes to spotting a non-compliant umbrella company. Usually, if something looks too good to be true with an umbrella company, it is. What’s more, you can actually face serious charges if you deal with a non-compliant umbrella company, so being able to spot them is crucial. Here are some signs that an umbrella company is non-compliant:
- Any company that ‘guarantees’ you will take home a fixed % of your gross assignment rate.
- Payments where only a fraction of your salary comes through payroll, and any payments listed as loans or other payments which are not subject to tax or NIC.
- Any payments to your bank account which are not listed on your payslip.
- Your payment does not come directly from the umbrella company and instead is routed through other companies first.
- Some of these might be offshore.
