| Working From Home 03:34 - May 11 with 2382 views | FredManRave |
Evening All!
I need to dip into the vast vat of knowledge and all round goodness that lfw has at its core.
I'm trying (quite desperately now) to find a "Work From Home" position whereby I can do exactly what it says on the tin irrespective of the fact that I don't presently reside in the UK. All my taxes and NI contributions are up to date, I have an open bank account with First Direct, a registered address and valid passport and driving licence.
What I am looking for is a job whereby the UK employer, quite literally, doesn't care where you are just the fact that you are capable of doing the required job. So not "WFH" during COVID, it has to be specifically a "WFH UFN" type situation.
I have been looking since January, I'm registered with several "Remote Specialist" agencies such as Flex Jobs (paid up member), Remotive.io, Remote Global, Working from Home and We Work Remotely but unfortunately relevant job postings are few and far between. I spoke to all the big UK agencies at the beginning but not one of them specialise or even have a dedicated area for this type of work.
Maybe there really aren't that many positions available that meet my criteria or maybe I've just not found the right agency that can help with my situation. I'm obviously hoping it's the latter and that's why I'm posting this message to see if anybody on here has any experience, advice or suggestions on how I could improve my search and contacts to help improve my chances of finding this much needed type of work.
So any suggestions or advice would be very much appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Fred.
P.S. Will work weekends. |  |
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| Working From Home on 06:38 - May 11 with 2284 views | WokingR |
You haven’t said what it is you actually do.
Rather than limit yourself to those agencies specialising in the wfh sector, why not search the wider job market based on your profession.
After a year of doing so, far more employers are open to this as the new ‘normal’
I have just taken someone on at the opposite end of the country for Surrey based business which I would not have considered before as this last year has shown that it can work. |  | | |
| Working From Home on 06:52 - May 11 with 2274 views | E15Hoop |
| Working From Home on 06:38 - May 11 by WokingR |
You haven’t said what it is you actually do.
Rather than limit yourself to those agencies specialising in the wfh sector, why not search the wider job market based on your profession.
After a year of doing so, far more employers are open to this as the new ‘normal’
I have just taken someone on at the opposite end of the country for Surrey based business which I would not have considered before as this last year has shown that it can work. |
I agree 100% with Woking. Virtually every professional company has embraced this "new normal" to some degree. in my own company, we just yesterday had an official email from the CEO saying that we are now only officially required to be in the office two days per week, with the other three being worked from wherever is most efficient for your own personal circumstances. |  | | |
| Working From Home on 06:56 - May 11 with 2262 views | Superhoop83 |
| Working From Home on 06:52 - May 11 by E15Hoop |
I agree 100% with Woking. Virtually every professional company has embraced this "new normal" to some degree. in my own company, we just yesterday had an official email from the CEO saying that we are now only officially required to be in the office two days per week, with the other three being worked from wherever is most efficient for your own personal circumstances. |
Meanwhile the boss at my firm wants everyone back 5 days a week asap, even though we've had a record year with lots of people WFH on a full or part time basis. |  |
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| Working From Home on 07:53 - May 11 with 2199 views | loftupper |
I've worked from home for 15 years now and its good to see companies embracing it, however I suppose one concern is that companies can drive salaries down simply by hiring people from outside of London. Depends on the job you do and what the competition is | | | |
| Working From Home on 08:27 - May 11 with 2153 views | dmm |
As others have said, it will depend on your experience and skill set but it may be worth looking at Third Sector organisations. I worked for an international NGO for 16 years and, depending on the role, it was used to staff working remotely. Since Covid the sector appears to have embraced WFH practices even more. |  | | |
| Working From Home on 08:29 - May 11 with 2146 views | EastR |
Agree with the comments above.
Rather than limiting your search to those sites (never heard of any of them by the way, and as a potential recruiter wouldn't use them specifically)
Much better to focus your attention on recruitment sites specialising in your area of expertise. The WFH bit will follow. | |
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| Working From Home on 09:23 - May 11 with 2065 views | PBLOCK |
I’ve worked in recruitment for nearly 20 years and for the last 10 years have been internal at large corporates
The biggest issue I see you have is that you are not based in the UK so this would cause issues with your tax situation which is probably why you’re not having much success. I’ve had this with internal candidates where the UK business think they can hire someone in say India but then not bring them to the UK, it’s simply not done. Essentially the person needs to be in the place where they will be paying tax on their earnings. Internal secondments I believe are no different | | | |
| Working From Home on 09:54 - May 11 with 2033 views | simmo |
| Working From Home on 09:23 - May 11 by PBLOCK |
I’ve worked in recruitment for nearly 20 years and for the last 10 years have been internal at large corporates
The biggest issue I see you have is that you are not based in the UK so this would cause issues with your tax situation which is probably why you’re not having much success. I’ve had this with internal candidates where the UK business think they can hire someone in say India but then not bring them to the UK, it’s simply not done. Essentially the person needs to be in the place where they will be paying tax on their earnings. Internal secondments I believe are no different |
Came on here to say something along the same lines, also depending on what kind of work you do - i.e. if it's client related - sometimes timezones play a factor. It's not always that you're an undesirable candidate, but could be that if they have multiple options and one doesn't come with additional criteria, it's the easier option for the team / HR / Legal to look closer to home.
Keep going, keep applying, focus on your market and make as many mutual contacts as possible. Best of luck. |  |
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| Working From Home on 10:13 - May 11 with 2000 views | CroydonCaptJack |
It sounds like an ideal type of role might be something where you can freelance for several clients and invoice them on a time or project related basis. That way they are not concerned with your tax situation (caveat here I am no tax expert). So (as others have said) depending on what sort of work you can do now or what you might be able to train up to do will dictate if that is feasible. |  | | |
| Working From Home on 11:20 - May 11 with 1923 views | OakR |
As above, I'd try to speak to a tax expert first if you are working in a different country.
We had someone from our company who wanted ot do this, but there was an issue tax wise so he ended up leaving.
Going abroad for a small amount of time for work is fine of course, but being permanently abroad and paid from here I'm not sure.
I think if oyu find this out, youcan then go to companies / agencies with how it can be done (if it can).
If you wanted to be paid in local currency that would be easier, but you'd then I think need to have an employment contract and pay taxes in the country you reside in.
Good luck. | |
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| Working From Home on 16:28 - May 11 with 1754 views | FredManRave |
| Working From Home on 06:38 - May 11 by WokingR |
You haven’t said what it is you actually do.
Rather than limit yourself to those agencies specialising in the wfh sector, why not search the wider job market based on your profession.
After a year of doing so, far more employers are open to this as the new ‘normal’
I have just taken someone on at the opposite end of the country for Surrey based business which I would not have considered before as this last year has shown that it can work. |
In my opinion I have to actually use those agencies because they do actually focus and have jobs whereby the companies looking for vacancies to be filled literally don't care where you live. However, most of them are focused on the US market hence my original post to see if anybody knew of similar agencies or any general advice for working from home for a UK company whilst residing outside the UK.
I think that making the non residency known from the outset is key as looking at the wider job market based on my profession (unfortunately nothing too definitive as my CV is a heady mix of Marketing, Banking, Administration and Client Service, aka Customer Success these days!) as you and somebody else mentioned, means that all applications would be "filed" in the bin as soon as the non residency issue became apparent. [Post edited 11 May 2021 17:00]
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| Working From Home on 16:36 - May 11 with 1722 views | FredManRave |
| Working From Home on 08:27 - May 11 by dmm |
As others have said, it will depend on your experience and skill set but it may be worth looking at Third Sector organisations. I worked for an international NGO for 16 years and, depending on the role, it was used to staff working remotely. Since Covid the sector appears to have embraced WFH practices even more. |
Hi the original dm!
That's good advice and is certainly something I hadn't looked into or even thought about if I'm honest. As mentioned above my skill set is really quite vague ranging from finance and banking from over 20 years ago to Marketing, Administration and Client Services most recently. Not sure if that's actually a good or bad thing to be honest although based on my "fits" so far it's not working in my favour.
Thanks again for the reply as it's appreciated. [Post edited 11 May 2021 16:58]
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| Working From Home on 16:38 - May 11 with 1712 views | FredManRave |
| Working From Home on 08:29 - May 11 by EastR |
Agree with the comments above.
Rather than limiting your search to those sites (never heard of any of them by the way, and as a potential recruiter wouldn't use them specifically)
Much better to focus your attention on recruitment sites specialising in your area of expertise. The WFH bit will follow. |
I understand your point but as mentioned in my reply to Woking I strongly believe that the non residency issue has to be known from the outset, hence using those agencies. To not do so would be to waste everybody's time as it would be the deal breaker in 99.9% of situations. | |
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| Working From Home on 16:57 - May 11 with 1682 views | FredManRave |
| Working From Home on 09:54 - May 11 by simmo |
Came on here to say something along the same lines, also depending on what kind of work you do - i.e. if it's client related - sometimes timezones play a factor. It's not always that you're an undesirable candidate, but could be that if they have multiple options and one doesn't come with additional criteria, it's the easier option for the team / HR / Legal to look closer to home.
Keep going, keep applying, focus on your market and make as many mutual contacts as possible. Best of luck. |
Thanks PBlock and Simmo, I appreciate the replies.
With regard to the tax situation I don't believe it to be an issue because as I am a fully paid up tax and NI contributor from my time working in the uk. I still, obviously, have my NI number and a current bank account and associated address. I will be getting in touch with HMRC just to ask the question. Worse case scenario would presumably be additional form filling and maybe a different tax structure.
There must be thousands of people that are non resident in the UK that receive an income and not just from working abroad (pension or property rental, for example) that pay their taxes as agreed with HMRC. So I'm hoping/assuming that side is just a formality.
Time zones are always taken into account from the very early stages of the job application process through the "WFH" companies that I've been using so that will never be an issue.
I'm trying to make as many mutual contacts as I can, mainly through LinkedIn and I'll obviously keep applying it's just that I feel like I've not yet found the most appropriate companies or contacts to help me with this situation, hence my original post.
As others have mentioned, the whole "WFH" approach has seen a huge increase over the last 14 months and I know of examples whereby companies are looking for employees from outside of the UK that have the required experience, knowledge and training as they will be cheaper than paying UK, especially London, wages. So this, rightly or wrongly, gave me hope when I first started looking but it's proving very difficult in general, to say the least.
Thanks to everybody that has taken the time to reply to my post as it's genuinely appreciated. [Post edited 11 May 2021 17:02]
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| Working From Home on 17:03 - May 11 with 1662 views | Benny_the_Ball |
You also haven't mentioned where you currently reside. This could have a bearing as some countries have bilateral agreements with the UK whereby who you pay tax to is determined by where you reside, not where you're registered.
Also, are you looking for a PAYE or (limited company) contractor role? From an accounting perspective it may be easier to pull off the latter but from a practical perspective it will be difficult to secure successive short-term WFH contracts.
I echo what others have said about the increase in flexible roles listed by regular agencies and jobsites. However these tend to be either Covid-WFH with a view to returning to the office once all restrictions are lifted or a hybrid role (e.g. 2 days in, 3 days out). I haven't seen too many offering long-term, full-time WFH, but they do pop up from time-to-time. [Post edited 11 May 2021 17:05]
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| Working From Home on 17:12 - May 11 with 1628 views | derbyhoop |
I tried to do similar in 2015. I spent the Summer in France and was looking for IT contracts in the Autumn.
Nobody would consider applications if you couldn't come for an interview in person. As 1 in 10 for jobs it wasn't worth the travelling.
Eventually came back in Sept and had a contract for mid October.
Even when WFH is acceptable many employers are reluctant to sanction it without spending (considerable) time in the office.
Good luck but don't get you hopes up.
Do make sure your CV is up to date and focused on the roles you seek.
Don't be afraid to use social media (FB, Twitter, LinkedIn but prob not Tindr  ) |  |
| Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the Earth all one’s lifetime. (Mark Twain)
Find me on twitter @derbyhoop |
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| Working From Home on 18:29 - May 11 with 1559 views | PunteR |
Time zones could an issue for you as 1983 to 2021 is quite a leap. |  |
| Occasional providers of half decent House music. |
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| Working From Home on 18:33 - May 11 with 1554 views | OutWestR |
| Working From Home on 18:29 - May 11 by PunteR |
Time zones could an issue for you as 1983 to 2021 is quite a leap. |
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| Working From Home on 18:39 - May 11 with 1537 views | philc |
Working as contractor through your own ltd Co is getting harder due to IR35. My last two contracts have both fallen within it, made a massive difference to my take home pay. But in my case paying myself dividends was only to avoid tax / NI so I’m not going to complain. | | | |
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