Going freelance: what a day rate really pays
£400 a day sounds like a fortune next to a salary — bill 220 days and that's £88,000 of invoices. But the day rate is the gross of the gross. After expenses, the tax you now sort yourself, the pension nobody matches and the weeks no one pays you for, here's what's actually left — on real 2026/27 rates.
The ladder down from the headline
Take a £58,000 salaried job against going sole trader at £400 a day, billing 220 days a year — £88,000 invoiced, with £6,000 of business costs. The headline gap is +£30,000. The "tax year" tells a quieter story:
Stay — £58,000 salary
employed · 5% pension · 4% employer match
Freelance — £400/day × 220 days
sole trader · own pension · 6 weeks off
£30,000 of extra invoices becomes £11,311 of real annual advantage. More than half evaporates — into £6,000 of costs, an income-tax bill you now settle through Self Assessment, and the employer pension you've swapped for one you fund yourself (£4,800 in, £6,000 in the pot once the government adds basic-rate relief, plus £1,200 of higher-rate relief back through your tax return). Class 2 NI is £0 — it hasn't been compulsory since April 2024, and your State Pension year still counts.
The number day rates hide: pay per hour
A salary buys your holiday; a day rate doesn't. Six unpaid weeks off means you work about 46 weeks, and the engine counts the hours either job really takes. Per committed hour, the freelance plan pays £29.39 against the salary's £23.22 — a real +£6.17 an hour, the cleanest way to compare a rate with a wage.
Two things a payslip quietly gives you that an invoice doesn't, both already in the figures above: a employer pension match (here £2,320 a year of free money you now replace yourself), and paid time off — holiday, bank holidays and sick days that keep paying when you don't work. The flip side is real too: no commute, and a pension entirely under your own control.
And then the half the money can't show
The day rate really does pay more here — about £11,000 a year, and £6 more an hour. But Greener doesn't stop at the money. It scores what you'd be trading: the security you give up (the biggest single move on the life axis, −1.80) against the autonomy you gain — remote, your own hours, your own diary (flexibility +3.40). Those net to a life score of +0.29, and with money strongly ahead the verdict lands at +2.26 — "clearly greener". Drop the billable days you can realistically win, or tell the calculator security matters most to you, and that answer tightens or flips. The point of a day rate was never the headline on the contract — it's what's left after tax, the pension you now build yourself, and the safety net you no longer have.
Price your own leap
Open this example, then set your real day rate, the days you'd actually bill, your costs and the pension you'd pay yourself. Switch a role to "self-employed" and there's a day-rate helper built in. Everything recomputes live, in your browser — nothing you type is uploaded.