Employer’s National Insurance: Managing the change across your temporary workers
Find out what National Insurance for Employers in 2025 means for your business. Important insights and changes await.
Published: 21 March 2025
Article by: Simon Lloyd
Update: Claim your free Employer's National Insurance impact audit now
We’re now offering a free ENIC impact consultation service to help you understand immediately the potential impact these changes will have on your business as well as providing you with actionable insights to support your organisation.
Managing change across temporary workers
The upcoming changes to Employer’s National Insurance Contributions (ENIC) are raising the costs of engaging any PAYE worker by a minimum of 2% – and in some cases up to more than 7.5%!
Whilst many might think this is a staff payroll problem just for HR and Finance to worry about, the uplift applies to any PAYE worker – including temporary workers engaged by you, your agencies or umbrella companies.
And, when it comes to temporary workers, added costs means added risk!
As the tax obligations for temporary workers increase, so does the scrutiny on your workforce tax administration and compliance. The Government is increasingly targeting payroll companies and, as of next year, seeking to pass liability on to agencies and the end client for any unpaid tax!
Our previous article explained the ‘ins and outs’ of the ENIC impact across your temporary workforce and offers a few tips on ways you can deal with the change. But, for many, ENIC presents a real issue when it comes to the temporary workforce…
The Employer’s National Insurance Contributions issue
Lots of organisation aren’t sure where to start with understanding the ENIC impact. Many of the clients we’re speaking to have told us we’re the first (and only) organisation to discuss the topic with them. Of those who have heard from their supply chain, some have complained of requested rate increases of up to 7.5% – well above the statutory ENICs increase!
Others have raised real issues with understanding the potential impact on their workforce costs:
- Lack of worker visibility: Total worker visibility isn’t a given. Many organisations don’t have centralised, singular view of all worker and supplier relationships, with local operations having procured resources themselves. This makes it difficult to fully understand the cost and risk profile of the workforce.
- Unknown pay rates & agency charges: ENIC applies to PAYE worker pay, so without a strong understanding of the invoice rate build up – what’s worker pay, statutory charges and agency costs – it’s hard to understand the cost implications.
- Contractor types: Without a reliable tech and workforce solutions programme, few organisations have full visibility of their worker contract types. Agencies don’t typically share their payment vehicles with end clients, as until now, this hasn’t been relevant. But without tracing which workers are subject to PAYE contracts and which are Limited Company, for example, it’s difficult to clarify the ENIC impact.
- Supplier visibility: Suppliers are taking different approaches to the ENIC increase, with many seeking to raise rates due to the burden of ENIC on their own operations. Identifying your suppliers and engaging with them about the changes is critical to keeping costs down.
What should I do?
For those with a workforce solution or reliable recruitment technology, it’s as simple as the click of a button and a chat with your workforce solutions provider!
But most organisations don’t have instant workforce visibility and, therefore, there’s a data capture effort to be made – and fast!
It is possible to get visibility, but this requires in-depth inspection of financial records, purchase orders, contracts, systems and supply chain.
We know what you’re thinking – with such short timeframes, undertaking a business-wide audit is a big ask, demanding time or resource capacity before April.
That’s where we can help!
Get a FREE* ENIC impact audit
Our ENIC impact audit service is perfect for those needing to understand their ENIC impact.
We’ll complete a comprehensive review to identify your temporary resources & supply chain, determine the ENIC cost impact and recommend resulting actions.
Through visibility of your workforce spend and suppliers, we can also recommend ways to offset the ENIC cost impact through potential cost savings and identify potential risks and tax liability worth exploring within your supply chain.
We follow three key steps to deliver your data and resulting recommendations.
Following our audit, we fully discuss our findings with you and can even support with resulting actions.
Need help? Chat to the experts!
Gattaca Solutions is an experienced workforce programme provider managing recruitment solutions spanning 50-2,000 hires per year. Our expert knowledge of employment law, payroll management and recruitment delivery, particularly across hard-to-find STEM skills, helps us deliver a consultative service to overcome longstanding skill shortages and deliver cost saving, efficiencies, compliance and strategic value to our clients.
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Gattaca Solutions is not a legal or financial consultancy. No part of this article constitutes as legal or financial advice and we do not accept liability for any actions taken based on the information provided in this article.