Having staff just got a little bit more expensive.
As of 6 April, the government hiked the employer national insurance rate from 13.8% to 15%, while lowering the threshold at which employers pay it from £9,100 to £5,000 a year.
While the government says the move will “help fix the foundations of the public finances and invest in public services”, the Conservatives branded it a “jobs tax”.
But what does this mean for channel firms in hiring mode?
Here’s the verdict from five companies known to be in expansion mode….
“Our appetite for investment won’t be dimmed”
Graham Charlton, CEO Softcat
Growth credentials:
Softcat continues to grow swiftly, with its top line and headcount rising by a respective 19% and 6% year on year in the first half of its fiscal 2025. It announced its first ever acquisition earlier this week.
The Marlow-based giant expects full-year headcount to hike by 6-8%.
Will the national insurance hike have any bearing on your recruitment plans?
Not really. Any movements in the cost base, whatever they’re driven by, have to be factored into our budget. We will not pull back from hiring and investing in our business because of it.
We’ve built the team very strongly over the past few years, and we always said that the rate of our recruitment will drop this year and next year as a result of that – so that’s what you’re seeing in the 6%.
But we’re investing in many other parts of the business as well. You might have seen on LinkedIn people getting giddy about the new London office. That’s a really exciting space we can use for our people, vendors and customers. We’re doing upgrades across a lot of the other offices as well. We’re going to be moving to a city centre location in Manchester, which will be a huge shot in the arm for that team, and we’re investing a lot in our own systems. We’re implementing a new finance system, we’ve rolled out Copilot, created a new data warehouse, we’re investing in Dynamics as our new sales system.
So our appetite for investment won’t be dimmed by things like the NI increase – we just have to work it in.
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