I have always worked for someone else, since the first job ever had doing Heading a team doing Quantity Surveying, so basically 20 something years. I’ve also been made redundant a few times and after my last one, I was able to start out on my own.

As this is my 1 year anniversary of HiddenText Ltd., I thought I’d share some tips about starting your own Freelance career in Cyber Security. Note: these are just my own observations and not some definitive amazing super list so you’ve got to do your own research too, but I hope some of these tips are useful to you.

Where it all started

I didn’t have too much of a hand in going alone to be fair. I had an amazing job which was doing some good at repairing some mental health issues I had incurred and life was just getting to a good point. Then the money ran out in the business and the decision was made that I would be one of the first to be let go … this was 2 weeks before Christmas and although it hurt personally, I had a plan. You see, getting into contracting is not easy, you need chances and you can narrow the odds if you expend the time and energy getting good at ‘stuff’, networking and selling yourself. So when I had my news, I went straight on the phone to let some people know I was going to become available to hire. At first, I was looking for a permanent position then this contract came up. I am massively indebted to the person who saw my talent and could see how they could apply it and that person gave me my lucky break. BUT … I needed a VAT registered, fully insured Limited trading company up and running with DBS clearance for me and could I do it in 2 weeks …

Setting out

So I had the contract but I was starting from zero … well probably about -20. I spoke to a few friends … well actually I spoke to a lot of people actually, all of them legends in their own right and each bringing their own perspectives to my situation. However there was always the key same information…

I had a laptop and the internet was barely any use. So the biggest tip I can give you is a person that you need on board at the start. Find a really good accountant. find one recommended by your peers, someone who can speak honest and truthfully, tell you the way it is and doesn’t wear rose-tinted glasses. They need to be able to tell you when you are making bad choices as much as when you are doing well. they also need to be on the ball with all sorts of legislation e.g. IR35, more about that later!

So I got a local accountant who could do everything I needed, set my business up for me, sort my VAT, set up Payrolls etc. and so I was in business, well kind of. I still needed:

• A Bank Account (with zero fees)
• DBS (I already had DBS Enhanced, but this contract needed the basic, I know go figure!)
• Insurances (liability as well as if I gave bad advice type)
• Car Insurance to cover business miles

These are all trivial things for sure, but they really eat up time … I mean really eat up time. You don;t want to get ripped off at this point as everything you are doing is costing you money and most of us don’t have money just lying around to pay for setting up a company.

The other thing to think about at the start is money.  I’ll deal with it in more detail in a moment, but you have a household to pay for so that gives you a baseline figure to start from to work out what to charge as a minimum but then you have to ask … what am I worth. Am I worth £100 per day, £500 per day, £1,000 per day? It is a really tough one to figure out. Unfortunately, you don’t get to always dictate that the client may tell you that the day rate is X, so plan ahead… you need a regular stream of income that, in the first year, will be going into your business account to set you up not to fund some amazing lifestyle (see below). Don’t rip off the client and don;t undersell yourself. Only you know your own value.

So my tip would be … set up your business with the minimum expenditure you can get away for the first few months until you start getting paid. For example, don’t buy a new suit yet … work in the environment a while and determine if you actually need one! Don;t buy a £3 grand laptop yet … In other words, don’t be silly!

Running a business

OK, so you’ve got everything sorted, you’ve read through the contract carefully, you’ve gone through hoops with intermediaries to get yourself onto their payroll systems and it is time to crack on.

I am not going to deal with “Life as a Contractor, the day job” in this blog, I want to focus on the business side of things. I might do that as a separate blog. So it’s getting about 4 weeks in and you need to do expenses, time sheets, invoicing and this is where it hits you … you’ve never had to do some of this stuff before. Critically, you need to be in control – this is your business and so you need to be involved in your own business. I elected to do my own bookkeeping and give my accountant all the VAT, payroll stuff I have no idea on.

While I am on the subject of bookkeeping, every receipt you collect, every time you are out then collect a receipt, you can then sit down with you spreadsheet later and work out what you are claiming for and what you can invoice on to your client. Rather than ending up with bundles of receipts I use Microsoft Office Lens to scan in my receipts which made it easier to share with my accountant.

However … always, always, always do your paperwork.

Oh yay … it’s paperwork time.

Said no-one .. ever.

Me Time

So there you go, you’re up and running, you’re doing your 9 till 5 etc etc. oh and you’re doing your paperwork and paying your bills. Remember though that there is more to life than work. Being a contractor is very different to being a full time employee. You are not part of their team, and you probably won;t get an invite to Janice’s birthday party either. That’s OK to be fair. You are there for the client to use your brain. For sure, get on with people … but … when you’re done for the day, go home. See the family, do the school run, read, listen to podcasts. you need that time away. when you’re a full time employee you can get suckered into the 24/7 life, but as a contractor, you don’t need to … so … don’t. That will give you time to repair your mental health … daily.

Another thing is to factor in holidays. As a contractor you are allowed to take holidays. You can afford them with budgeting (see money). You work with the client as to when you’re taking off, you leave your works mobile at home and you go away. It really is as easy as that.

A final thing to factor in is conferences, events etc. Because … although you are in a pretty good contract right now, at some point it will end and you need another contract, Don’t stop selling yourself. Don’t stop learning, don’t stop networking!

Money

OK … the important bit. You can get this very very wrong and cause yourself a world of pain. So let me explain what I did and how I’m finishing my first year with money in the bank, have had paid holidays and am currently without a contract and able to afford to have some downtime.

So I have

1. A BUSINESS account which is a debit card and I have 0% fees on that account
2. A PERSONAL DEBIT account … a regular debit card that is for home
3. A PERSONAL CREDIT card which is mix and match between work and home

So this is how I connect it all together:

• So the client pays you a day rate.
• You pay that into your BUSINESS account
• You spend expenses on your PERSONAL CREDIT card
• You invoice the client your expenses into your BUSINESS account
• Your business pays your PERSONAL CREDIT card
• You also pay yourself a wage from your BUSINESS account into your PERSONAL DEBIT
• Your BUSINESS account will also have to pay PAYE/NIC to HMRC
• Your BUSINESS account will also have to pay VAT too
• At the end of the year your BUSINESS account will pay the massive bill of your Corporate Tax

There are also going to be other things, stationary, Insurances etc. They are company expenses so pay them from your BUSINESS account.

So let’s get managing all these ins and outs. Open a spread sheet:

• Create tabs that are going to be your expenses (label them the month and year)
• Create a tab that is going to take your incoming money, your expenses (label it income)
• Create a tab that is called dividends where you will put in the max you’re paying yourself in dividends and then call off that amount so you know how much you have left to pay yourself
• Final tab is called budgeting.
  • Have a column for Wage,
  • Column for PAYE/NIC,
  • Column for dividends,
  • One for VAT,
  • Column for Corporation Tax (19% of you income),
  • One for expenditure you have to do
  • Final column for wishful thinking e.g. new laptop.

By the wizardry of Excel you can now put all the numbers together and work out when you are going to run out of money if you only earn money up to X point. If you want to spend £3k on a laptop, you can now work out how it will impact. (There is probably some wonderful app to do this, I use Excel because I know it well and it was already included in Office so it didn’t cost me anything!

But how much do I pay myself? Here’s a pro tip… leave the money in your business in year 1. So pay yourself £749 per month and the balance up to £49,000 per annum. This means you will be paying the lowest amount in tax. Irrelevant, you will still have to pay that whopper of a Corporation Tax but hey, we gotta pay something sometime.

So about 9 months in you’ll be looking at your business account going wow ! I can go nuts buying stuff … not yet … hold on … you’ve got that Corporation Tax to pay yet! Plus, the delight of HMRC have yet to strike with some strange thing they’ve invented which could cost you … so leave that money in the business for now. Paying those taxes is going to hurt, I ain’t going to lie but … one day you’ll be sat in a hospital and you will know you paid a chunk of that.

I’m going to recommend some videos:

This channel :

https://smoothaccounting.co.uk/videos/

This video :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFSRcLo44pA

Tell them I sent you and thumbs up for likes !

IR35 … there’s a lot going on in that area so … ask your accountant about how it’s going to impact you and make sure you have plenty of clients to balance it too.

Why bother

So I wanted to have this in here. Most people assume that contractors do it for the money. To be fair, it is a nice side-gig to have the money you get from contracting. However, not everyone is guided by money. Some people want to make a difference too so think about why you want to contract. It is OK to be doing it for the money by the way, make sure you are putting the client first though.

Pitfalls

There are loads of pitfalls to contracting. It can be lonely as you are not a full time employee. You may also come across hostility from permanent staff who think you are there to take their jobs. You sure as hell will overstep the mark in several meetings. You are highly likely to want to and probably will facepalm and headbutt many walls, yeah contracting can be hard on the mind like that.

You also are hired as an expert, so you may also need to hold your tongue.

Finally I bet you forgot a website and your marketing stuff didn’t you! It took me about 6 months to finally get my website done! I hope you like it by the way!

Summary

And there we have it. It has been an awesome year of HiddenText. I am immensely proud of what I have achieved. I know I struck lucky with some stuff throughout the year, but when lady luck deals you those cards, you play them. I have to shout out to some of my old work colleagues that I hope to work with again. You know who you are and I know you are modest enough to know that I won’t be naming you. It was a blast, we eat well, drank well and laughed so hard!

I will however give a shout out to the following for being such huge helps to me throughout the year in support, advice and generally keeping me sane.

• Mo Amin
• Jenny Radcliffe
• James Gosnold
• Amar Singh
• Mike Hawes
• Stuart Criddle
• CIISec
• Zeshan Sattar
• Karlton St James
• Gerard Stubbs
• Dan Hathaway
• David Parkinson
• Rob Heggarty
• Richard Betts
• Danny Dresner
• Richard De Vere
• Lin Bardsley
• Lorraine Dryland
• John Opdenakker
• Chris Murtagh
• TimelessP
• Ian Murphy
• Sophia McCall
• Ed Tucker
• Nick Drage
• Carl Gottlieb
• Dan Raywood
• Brian Honan
• Joe Pettit
• Chris Toon
• The BeerFarmers
• Anthony Freed
• Graham Cluley
• Richard Tamworth
• Dom Wint

I listened to everything you said, I took it away. I implemented stuff and I did OK by it so thank you all for your advice, inspiration and encouraging words. It really means a lot to me.

So there we go, that’s a wrap. My first year of HiddenText Ltd. Let me know if you want any more information on anything above, will gladly help where I can.