The money, compared properly.
Burton, Cutlers on PAYE, Cutlers self-employed, and Big Motoring World — same tax year, same method, take-home at the bottom. Plus the answer to whether you can be self-employed full-time for one company, because it is not the answer most people assume.
01All of it on one line
Income tax and National Insurance at 2026/27 rates. Personal allowance £12,570, basic rate 20% to £50,270, employee NI 8%, self-employed Class 4 NI 6%.
| Scenario | Gross | Tax | NI | Take-home | Employer pension * |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Burton — what you actually earned £20,000 basic + £30,800 commission, verified | £50,800 | £7,752 | £3,027 | £40,021 | £1,321 |
| Cutlers £27,500 — PAYE basic only; commission unknown | £27,500 | £2,986 | £1,194 | £23,320 | £638 |
| Cutlers £27,500 — self-employed before ~£550 of costs and with no paid holiday | £27,500 | £2,986 | £896 | £23,618 | £0 |
| ⚠ Do not read those two rows straight across. The self-employed line shows a higher take-home — £23,618 against £23,320 — purely because Class 4 NI is 6% and Class 1 is 8%. It is the most misleading number on this page. Nothing in that column accounts for holiday pay or the pension. The next section corrects it. | |||||
| BMW — basic only | £23,000 | £2,086 | £834 | £20,080 | £503 |
| BMW — Cannock reported median Indeed, 17 salaries at that site | £29,767 | £3,439 | £1,376 | £24,952 | £706 |
| BMW — the advertised OTE unevidenced; their accounts argue against it | £60,000 | £11,432 | £3,211 | £45,357 | £1,321 |
* Employer pension shown at the 3% minimum. At 21 you are below the automatic-enrolment age of 22 — you get it only if you ask to opt in. See section 02.
The uncomfortable headline
You were taking home about £40,000 a year. Every realistic scenario on the table below that is a pay cut of £15,000 to £20,000 in the hand.
Only one line beats it, and it is the one nobody has evidenced. Big Motoring World's advertised £60,000 would take home £45,357 — but their own audited accounts say the group makes £940 of gross profit a car and the average sales executive shifts 7.1 cars a month, and the reported figure at Cannock is £29,767.
What that means practically: the basic salary is not the decision. Every one of these jobs lives or dies on the commission scheme, and only one of the three employers has ever shown you one — and that was Burton.
Read it the right way round
Do not compare £27,500 to £23,000. Compare each of them to £50,800, because that is what you proved you can earn and it is the number any employer should have to beat.
To match Burton you need roughly £23,300 of commission at Cutlers or £27,800 at Big Motoring World, on top of the basic. Ask both of them what that takes in units, and whether anyone there actually does it.
02Cutlers: PAYE or self-employed
Same £27,500. Very different job.
Like for like — the only honest way to compare the two
The take-home column is not a fair comparison, because a self-employed person gets no pension contribution and no paid holiday at all. Put those back in and it reverses.
A · Same money, £27,500 either way
| PAYE | Self-employed | |
|---|---|---|
| Take-home after tax and NI | £23,320 | £23,618 |
| Employer pension paid in | + £638 | £0 |
| Accountant and insurance | — | − £550 |
| Total value to you | £23,957 | £23,068 |
| Weeks you have to work for it | 46.4 (5.6 weeks paid off) | 52 (no paid time off) |
PAYE is £889 better — and you work five and a half weeks fewer for it.
B · Same job, same time off — the real comparison
If you take the 5.6 weeks a PAYE employee gets, a self-employed you earns nothing during them. Invoicing only for weeks actually worked, £27,500 a year becomes £24,538.
| PAYE | Self-employed | |
|---|---|---|
| Gross received | £27,500 | £24,538 |
| Tax and NI | − £4,180 | − £3,111 |
| Pension in / costs out | + £638 | − £550 |
| Total value, identical job, identical holiday | £23,957 | £20,877 |
PAYE is £3,081 a year better for exactly the same work. That is the number to hold in your head on Saturday.
C · So what self-employed rate is actually equivalent?
- £28,700 if you work all 52 weeks and never take a holiday.
- £32,200 if you still want the 5.6 weeks off.
And neither of those puts a penny of value on sick pay, notice, redundancy or unfair dismissal protection. £27,500 self-employed is not a better offer than £27,500 employed. It is roughly £3,000 a year worse.
🔴 Correction — the pension is not automatic at 21, you have to ask
I had this wrong earlier. Automatic enrolment only applies from age 22. You are 21, so even on PAYE, Cutlers would not be required to enrol you automatically.
But you have the right to opt in — and if you earn over £10,000 the employer is then obliged to contribute. So the £638 is yours if you ask for it, and only if you ask. It is free money and most 21-year-olds never claim it.
Add it to the list for whichever job you take: "I'd like to opt in to the pension from the start." Say it on day one, not at your next birthday — every month you don't is about £53 of someone else's money you didn't take.
On tax alone, self-employed is slightly better — and that is the trap
Class 4 National Insurance is 6%; employee Class 1 is 8%. So on £27,500, self-employed keeps £299 more. That is the entire case for it, and anyone selling you self-employment will stop talking there.
Here is what sits on the other side of the ledger:
| What you give up | Worth |
|---|---|
| 5.6 weeks' paid holiday — the legal minimum for employees and workers | £3,319 |
| Employer pension — 3% of qualifying earnings, free money on top | £638 |
| Accountant and public liability insurance | ~£550 |
| Sick pay — SSP now pays from day one; self-employed gets nothing | £0 if you're ill |
| Notice pay — a month is worth £2,292; a contractor can be stood down today | none |
| Redundancy pay | never accrues |
| Unfair dismissal protection | never applies |
The equivalence: to match £27,500 employed you would need to invoice about £28,700 working every week of the year, or £32,200 if you still want the holiday — before pricing sick pay, notice, redundancy or dismissal protection at all. Price those and it is £33,000–£35,000.
So £27,500 self-employed is worth roughly £22,000–£24,000 as a proper job — below or barely level with Big Motoring World's £23,000 PAYE.
🔴 The January bill
Self-employed tax is not taken as you go. Your first self-assessment payment would be about £5,823 in one go on 31 January — the year's tax and NI of £3,882 plus a £1,941 payment on account for the year ahead.
That is more than every penny you have. If you ever go self-employed, put aside £1 in every £4 from day one and do not touch it.
🔴 And the one that should settle it
You were dismissed four days ago after two years, with no proper process. The only reason you have any remedy at all is that you were an employee.
From 1 January 2027 the qualifying period for unfair dismissal drops from two years to six months — so someone starting as an employee in August 2026 is protected within months. A self-employed contractor is never protected, however long they stay.
Of everyone in Britain who should refuse a self-employed label this month, you are near the top of the list.
03"Can you work full-time for one company as self-employed?"
Ade's question, and the honest answer is: yes in principle, almost certainly not in this case — and there is a third option nobody mentions.
The label does not decide it. The reality does.
There is no rule that says you cannot be self-employed with only one client, or that working full-time makes you an employee. Plenty of genuine contractors work for one firm at a time.
But status is decided by what actually happens, not by what the contract says. HMRC and the tribunals look at three things above all:
- Control — who decides what you do, how, when and where? If they set your hours and your rota, that points to employment.
- Substitution — could you genuinely send someone else in your place and would they accept them? If they want you specifically, that points to employment.
- Mutuality of obligation — must they offer work and must you accept it? If yes, that points to employment.
Apply that to a trailer sales job: their premises, their stock, their opening hours, their customers, their rota, you personally, nobody else. On every test that reads as employment, whatever the advert calls it.
Whose problem is it? Mostly theirs. For a sole trader — as opposed to someone working through their own limited company — the risk of reclassification falls on the engager. If HMRC decided Cutlers had got it wrong, Cutlers would face the unpaid PAYE and National Insurance. That is worth knowing but it is not a reason to accept it: your holiday, sick pay and dismissal rights are still gone in the meantime.
The third category nobody mentions — "worker"
UK law has three statuses, not two: employee, worker, and genuinely self-employed. Worker sits in the middle, and it is where most mislabelled "self-employed" people actually land.
Workers are legally entitled to: 5.6 weeks' paid holiday, the National Minimum Wage, rest breaks, protection from unlawful deductions, whistleblowing protection, and auto-enrolment pension.
Workers do not get: unfair dismissal protection, redundancy pay, or statutory notice. Those need employee status.
The courts have been consistent and they look through the paperwork. In Autoclenz v Belcher (2011) the Supreme Court held that tribunals must look at the true agreement rather than the written terms. Pimlico Plumbers (2018) and Uber v Aslam (2021) both ended with people labelled self-employed being held to be workers — with holiday pay and minimum wage owed.
What this means for you: if Cutlers call it self-employment but treat you like staff, you would very likely be a worker — and legally entitled to that £3,319 of holiday pay regardless of what you signed. That is a genuine backstop. It is also a fight you would have to pick, with the man who employs you. Far better to get it right at the start.
04The minimum wage floor — the sharpest question you can ask
£23,000 only covers the legal minimum up to about 39 hours a week
You are 21, so the National Living Wage of £12.71 an hour applies to you from April 2026. It applies to employees and to workers.
£23,000 ÷ £12.71 = 1,809 hours a year. Spread across the 46.4 weeks you would actually work after holiday, that is 39 hours a week. Beyond that, commission is not a bonus — it is what keeps the job legal.
Now put the reported hours against it. Big Motoring World Cannock trades 10:00–21:00 Monday to Friday, plus weekends. Staff reviews describe 60–70 hour weeks. At 65 hours across 46.4 weeks that is 3,016 hours, which at £12.71 requires £38,333 a year to be lawful.
The reported Cannock median is £29,767. So one of three things is true, and it is a perfectly fair thing to want to know:
- the 60–70 hour weeks in the reviews are exaggerated, or
- people there earn considerably more than the reported figures, or
- there is a minimum wage problem.
You do not accuse anyone of anything. You ask a neutral question and listen to how comfortable the answer is.
"What are the contracted weekly hours, and what does a typical week actually look like on the floor?"
The opening hours are a matter of record. The 60–70 hour figure comes from employee reviews, which are evidence of what people felt, not proof of what they worked. The arithmetic above is sound; the input is not certain. That is exactly why you ask rather than assert.
05The commute is worth about two grand
Roughly 9 miles each way to Cutlers at Barton under Needwood. Roughly 25 miles each way to Cannock. That is about 32 extra miles a day, six days a week.
| Running cost | Extra miles a year | Extra cost a year |
|---|---|---|
| 15p a mile | 9,216 | £1,382 |
| 20p a mile | 9,216 | £1,843 |
| 25p a mile | 9,216 | £2,304 |
And roughly 50 extra minutes a day — about 240 hours a year, or six and a half working weeks of your life sat in a car.
On a £23,000 basic, £1,800 of fuel is most of the £3,000 that Big's basic gains you over Burton's. Check the actual drive time from Hatton at 9am and at 9pm before you weigh any offer — those are very different journeys.
06What to do with all this
- Saturday, at Cutlers, after the selling conversation: "The advert said full-time and also self-employed — can I check which it is? Is it PAYE with holiday and pension, or a contract for services?" If PAYE, Cutlers is the better of your two offers on guaranteed money. If self-employed, don't argue — ask to see the written terms, and note that a genuine contractor rate should be £32,000-plus, not £27,500.
- Both interviews: ask what the commission scheme actually is, in writing, before any decision. Rate, thresholds, when it triggers, clawback, and how leads are allocated.
- Both interviews: ask what the median person in the role earned last year. Not the OTE, not the top performer — the middle.
- Neither interview: do not tell them you earned £50,800. It is your benchmark, not your opening position. If asked what you're looking for, say you're more interested in how the scheme works than in a headline number.
- Do not accept anything on Saturday. Cannock is Monday. Two live conversations is the only leverage you have.
- Before signing anything self-employed: run HMRC's free CEST tool at gov.uk with honest answers, and keep the result.
And keep this in proportion
Neither of these jobs replaces £50,800 quickly, and you have six applications live. The UK average for a car sales executive is £36,784 — Big Motoring World sits at the bottom of that market, not the top.
Neither of these is your last chance. Go, be impressive, ask good questions, and take your time.