help, what hourly rate for PR?

[PrincessScrumpy]

I currently have an admin role which I went for after being made redundant from a senior position at a newspaper. job is okay and fits with family life but it is admin.
Today I was asked if I could take on additional work on an hourly basis doing some PR. I've not worked specifically in PR but it's a really interesting role I think I can do. They've asked me to suggest an hourly wage and I am turning to mn for suggestions. I don't wasn't to take the p* but also don't want to be a mug.

Current admin salary is 9 an hour but that includes sick pay and holiday pay, other role is more of a piece of work I get paid for as and when needed.

Any thoughts?

I have paid £40 an hour for an experienced freelance PR before.

I would suggest most freelancers (even Virtual Assistants) start from at least £15 an hour.

If they tried to find a PR, even one with limited experience I doubt they'd find one for less than £20 an hour.

I am in London by the way.

In addition to the lack of benefits there is the hassle of registering to become self-employed, doing a return and keeping accounts. So that needs to be factored in.

You should also be aware (if you are not) of IR35 legislation which prevents employers offering what is essentially a job as a self-employed contract, allowing them to skip employer NI payments. If you freelance you ideally should have more than 1 client etc.

Sounds like an interesting opportunity good luck.

Officially I won't be freelance as I'll be paid as overtime topped up for my current job so will still get NI contributions but I have complete flexitime and this piece of work will be as and when rather than on a weekly basis. I will need to invoice them, but it's more an overtime request. Does that make sense - am I missing anything?

It could be a matter of language - yours, theirs or mine!

If you are an employee and you do additional hours for this work, you should just be able to advise them (using whatever internal process they have) that you did x hours on the PR project. They should know that this work is paid at £x and pay you that.

If they are asking to "invoice" them, then it sounds to me like you are considered a supplier and therefore you would be doing these hours as self-employed?

If you are doing it as an employee I guess you just want some paperwork which outlines the responsibilities and the hourly rate.

That help?

Yep thank you. I think the term invoice is my boss trying to make it sound professional. I would have a separate contract so I'll wait and see what the wording is.

Hi there, as part of my offering to clients, I do PR and I vary my fee depending on lots of factors, such as type of organisation, scope of work, amount of time they hire me for and so on.

Like Margo says, £40 per hr isn't unusual, but you do need to be able to demonstrate value for money. If it's not something you've done before but you think this could be a potential new venture, why not start around £15-18 per hour with your existing company and then look at what you could offer elsewhere and build your daily/hourly rate with each client?

Also worth considering is that if you did it as extra hours, would this affect pension payments, holiday entitlement and so on?

Hope that helps?

Thank you. I'm going to talk to my friend tonight who is an accountant so should get advice on how best to approach it all. I've suggested an hourly rate in the region of 15-20 and written a mini pitch with my initial thought of where I see the work going regarding social media and the press etc (sort of trying to justify it which is a bit mad as they've chosen me and given less than 24 hours notice to provide them with something so they can inform the rest of the team about me and get it agreed. Fingers crossed. I'm still not believing it's as good as it sounds. Sounds like my perfect job and it's found me not the other way round.

Sorry for the errors - 2 young children are climbing in me :)

Princess, how did it go? Did you get it agreed with your work?

I'm a firm believer in good stuff coming to those who deserve it. Like you, most of my work has found me, rather than me actively going out looking for it. Really hope it goes well and you enjoy it, and who knows, this could be the beginning of something brilliant and exciting for you, I really hope so.

Thank you CommsWhizz and yes it was confirmed today :) now I just need to make sure I do a good job! Really happy but will be more so once the paperwork has come through. I have my first project so it looks like the job is as they said.