Second job and tax

[SconNotScone]

Hi all. I am a health professional (non-NHS), and was considering applying for a Band 4 NHS role to administer the COVID vaccine.

I have never had more than one job at once. Is anyone able to tell me what it means for tax/national insurance if you have to jobs, or how I can find out? Will I be taxed a ridiculous amount on a second job?

If it helps, I currently work term time only, 20 hours per week, 35 weeks per year, but paid 12 months of the year.

Thanks very much!

Hi, I have a 2nd job and it is taxed at BR (basic rate) of 20%. I don’t pay NI on the 2nd job. My combined salary doesn’t exceed £30k so I’m not sure how you would be affected if you earned over £50k

NI is per job.
I think more than about £180 and you need to pay NI.
Tax is cumulative. Assuming you have used all you tax free allowance, your second job will get taxed at your highest rate - and may tip you into a higher tax bracket if you are a high earner).

Sorry, that more than abougc£180 per week to need to pay NI.

That’s helpful, thank you @TomorrowIsAnotherDae, I wouldn’t exceed £50k (nor £30k for that matter!!!)

Try The Salary Calculator It is fairly accurate.

Hi OP. Am an accountant dealing regularly with personal tax so can help out! Sorry for long post incoming...

Your personal allowance is £12.5k and this is available to anyone with income of under £100k. This means that each month you'll get just over £1k of tax free income. This is shown on your payslips as tax code 1250L (this figure may be different/higher if you're claiming for all your allowances!). What it means is that you will then be taxed at 20% on all your income between 12.5k and 50k and 40% up to 150k and 45% over that.

With a second job there are a couple of options. You can split this allowance between both jobs in any way you like (say, 50/50). This would mean you get half of your personal allowance for each job (£6,250 per year for each job) and both payslips showing 625L as your tax code.

Alternatively you can have your full personal allowance on one job and none on the other. This would mean you have one job with the full 1250L tax code and the other with none. This means all of your income on the second job will be taxed at 20% (if your total income us under 50k).

To summarise you will never pay more income tax by having your pay come from two jobs than if you had one job earning the same total amount. I.e. If you earn 40k in one job you will pay the same tax as if you earn 25k in one job and 15k in a second.

The difference with NI is where you will pay PER EMPLOYMENT. So if you had ten jobs all earning less than £183 a week you would never pay NI. Every job that you earn at least £183 pw you will pay NI at 12% (2% when you get super wages).

This means that if you are paid above the £183pw in each job you will actually be saving NI. If you earn £185 in each job you'll pay tax on £2 in job 1 and £2 in job 2. If the whole £370 was in one job you'd pay NI on £187.

You will never be penalised by having more than one job.

@TomorrowIsAnotherDae That's a useful link, thank you for that!

And @elldog6 thank you so much for all that information, that really is so helpful. I really appreciate it, you've made things much clearer for me!

@SconNotScone no problem! Good luck with your jobs!