Second job tax

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I am currently employed part time through my husbands company as a cleaner, but also work on the nurse bank on a zero hour contract when I am able to do shifts around childcare. I have now been offered a permanent part time post in a hospital, but unsure how I am going to be affected by tax. I am so clueless when it comes to HMRC and tax so don't know how much I will have to pay. I will be earning much more in my permanent nursing job, so will my tax allowance automatically go to my higher earning job or will it be the one I was employed in first? Do I need to inform HMRC? I am in Scotland if that makes a difference.

If you are working in a full time role with the NHS will you still be working as a cleaner for your husband’s company. You can do the tax calculations yourself by adding both wages together and going on to the HMRC website, having a look at your tax free amount and the tax bands and doing calculations. Don’t forget you will be paying NI and a pension too. If you just google ‘ how much tax will I pay on xxxxx’ you will get directed to websites that have tax calculators.
Or if you are feeling brave you could give your figures on here and someone will help you work it out.
I don’t know which job HMRC will take as you first job but you and both of your employers will be given tax codes by HMRC to work with.

I am in a similar position, to make my life easier I contacted HMRC and requested if my allowance can be allocated to one job and other I am taxed on fully if that makes sense?

To keep things simpler for you I would contact HMRC and ask them to use your tax free allowance against your main job. All in all it doesn't make a difference to how much tax you pay but just keeps things easier when you are checking you are paying the right amount of tax etc.

Everyone has a tax-free allowance. The year 2025/2026 is £12570.

When you have two or more jobs on a payroll, the tax-free allowance is usually applied to the job where you earn the most amount of money. However, you can ask HMRC to split that allowance against both jobs - I am not sure on the ratio of the split, for example, may be it could be £6285 against each job, no matter what your earn.

If you don't split your allowance, the first £12570 of income on your "main" job won't be taxed. All of your income on the second job will be taxed immediately. However if you know that you'll earn more than £12570 in your main job anyway, it is all as broad as it is long, because you'll pay the same amount of tax whichever way you look at it, it's just a case of when. And every year it will all correct itself, and you'll be paid back anything you are owed.

In the past, I've done several jobs on payrolls all at the same time, and I have never chosen to split my allowance - I just left it against the "main" job, and paid full tax on the others, because as I said above, it all amounts to the same thing, it's just that some people don't like to pay their taxes any sooner than they have to.

It does get more complicated (but not much more) when you are on a payroll and are also working as self-employed & do a tax return, as the self-assessment is usually for money earned many months -even over a year- earlier, so the time-frames for when you earned on a payroll and earned as self-employed are not in harmony. I use an accountant to work all this out for me anyway, but I always opted to pay the full tax on my payroll earnings as I earned them, which was then off-set against my self-employed earnings for the same period, when the self-assessment eventually went in.

You ask if you should inform HMRC, and I would say that in your position I would, just so you know exactly what your options are.

It will be allocated to one job. You’d need to speak to the tax office to make sure they allocate it to the higher paid job. As your husband has his own business he should be able to talk you through this!

Ring HMRC. They’re really helpful and will be able to help you decide which is the best for YOU. they open at 8am, and it’s quicker to get through, the earlier you call. They get really busy later in the day, and you could be on hold for a couple of hours, but it’s worth persevering.
It sounds, on the face of it, better to transfer your entire tax allowance to the nursing role, but talk to them and they will work it out for you.

When you start the new job you'll be asked whether you have other work or other taxable income and payroll will report this to HMRC who will adjust your tax code accordingly.

I have an occupational pension which uses the entirety of my tax free allowance of £12,800. My earnings from a part time job with a charity are taxed at Basic Rate.

If you speak to HMRC they're usually helpful in splitting the allowance between jobs or allocating it to just one if that works better for the taxpayer.

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Please can you advise me on the following.

I have 2 jobs.

Job A I earn about £1250 a month, however I put 85% of my salary into my company pension, so I don’t pay any tax on this salary. Just NI.

Job B is a zero hour contract. I just received a payslip for £311.37, and they took £62.40 off me in tax.

If I am paying this much into my pension (which I’ll be taxed on later) and my salary is only around £500-600 a month then I shouldn’t be being taxed right?

a) is 311.37 for a week or a month?
b) what tax code is on the payslip for the second?

Edit: I suspect the tax code is BR and you're being taxed at basic rate on the entirety of those earnings. This is common in second jobs. You may be able to sort it out by speaking to HMRC.

On my payslip is says tax code: BR
The £311 is for the month. It’s just an ad hoc 6-7 hour a week job on min wage. I’m a sports coach.

OK the reason for asking the time period was to ascertain whether a wk1/month1 code was appleid but a few seconds more though it was obvious that the tax was 20% of the pay.

If it's BR the period covered doesn't matter; employer takes 20% and remits it to the taxman.

I've had a couple of problems in the past. There was cock-up on a TUPE transfer which meant arrangement where my free pay is allocated wholly to my pension was abrogated and instead it was applied to my employed pay.

It was sorted out with a phone chat with HMRC. 25 minutes on hold and five actually sorting it but that's life.