Worker status & pay
What is employment status?
Employment status is whether an individual is an employee, a worker or genuinely self-employed. It determines which rights and protections apply, and it is decided by the facts of the engagement rather than by the contract label.
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<img src="https://agencyoptix.co.uk/glossary/employment-status/diagram.svg" alt="employment status — diagram from AgencyOptix" width="880" height="620" loading="lazy">
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<a href="https://agencyoptix.co.uk/glossary/employment-status">What is employment status?</a> — diagram by
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</figure>The tests look at what actually happens: whether there is an obligation to offer and accept work, whether the individual must do the work personally, and how much control the engager has over how it is done.
There are separate statuses for employment rights and for tax, and they do not always align. An individual can be a worker for rights purposes and treated differently for tax on the same engagement.
Because it is fact-based, the written contract is evidence rather than an answer. A clause describing an arrangement that does not reflect practice is routinely disregarded by a tribunal.
What goes wrong in practice
- Relying on a self-employment clause where the engagement operates as employment in practice.
- Assuming the rights position and the tax position are the same question.
- Treating status as settled at onboarding when the working arrangement has since changed.