Posted By Paul Craythorne Phil, I went self employed in April of this year after 14 years as a practitioner/enforcement officer/consultant and am pleased that I did. In no particular order the following is my advice to you: You need to make sure that you have some money in your bank to cover you for the early days while you are building up your client base and waiting for the buggers to pay you! You should try to establish links with other existing consultancies to see if you can get work as a sub contract consultant. Get yourself a good business manager at your local bank. Get yourself a good accountant otherwise you will spend all your free time doing your bookkeeping and VAT/tax returns. Think about whether you operate as a sole trader, partnership or limited company as there are tax and other issues that are affected by your choice. Think about whether you are going to voluntarily register for VAT even if you do not meet the threshold for compulsory registration as there are pros and cons to this also. Make sure you chase overdue payments efficiently as these can get out of hand and you may end up being owed a lot of money but have none to live on. Consider taking out critical accident/ill health insurance in case you are unfortunate enough to be unable to work for any length of time. Shop around for professional indemnity insurance as this varies greatly and you would be foolish to operate without it (some clients won't touch you if you do not have any). Remember to set your charges at a reasonable rate to be able to compete with others but not so low as you end up not making enough (you do not work and get paid for 365 days per year and when you are on holiday you are not earning). There are a whole host of other things to consider but for me the above list just sticks in my mind. Wish you every success. Regards, Paul Craythorne Paul Craythorne Associates

Posted By Paul Bellis Phil I am also thinking of doing the same, and may be going ahead early new year, after I have looked in to things in a bit more detail. On thing that concerns me is location of work, as I am based in North Wales, there doesnt seem to be a lot of call for consultants here really -not a great deal of industry until you get into the North West and Manchester areas, which would mean a lot of time on the road for me. Still, it seems promising as the consultants I have spoken to or who have contributed to this forum seem to be doing OK ..... unless we hear otherwise! Hope you have every success Paul Bellis