You have been offered agency shifts as a support worker. The hourly rate is better than your permanent job, you work the shifts, and then the first payslip lands and the number at the bottom is not what you expected. Agency care worker pay is not complicated, but four things sit between the rate you were told and the money you receive: how you are employed, tax, holiday pay and deductions. This is what each one means and what to ask before you take a shift.
PAYE or umbrella: the first question to ask
There are two ways an agency can pay you. Under PAYE the agency employs you directly, runs its own payroll, takes off income tax and National Insurance and pays you, usually weekly. The rate you are quoted is your rate before tax, and that is the end of it.
Under an umbrella arrangement the agency pays an umbrella company, the umbrella employs you, and it takes its own margin and its employer costs out of the money before what is left reaches you as wages. The figure you were quoted may be the assignment rate, which is what the umbrella receives, not what you are paid. The gap can be several pounds an hour. Ask which arrangement applies before you accept anything, and if the answer is umbrella, ask for your hourly rate after the umbrella's costs, in writing.
One thing changed on 6 April 2026. Under amendments to the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003, the recruitment agency that supplies you is now legally responsible for making sure PAYE is operated correctly on your pay, even where an umbrella company runs the payroll. If tax goes unpaid, HMRC can pursue the agency. It does not remove the umbrella margin, so the question above still matters.
The Key Information Document
Before you agree terms with any agency you must be given a Key Information Document. This has been a legal requirement since 6 April 2020 under regulation 13A of the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003. It should tell you who employs you, who pays you, your rate or minimum rate, how often you are paid, every deduction that will be made and a worked example taking a gross figure down to a net one.
If the agency has not given you one, ask. If it will not produce one, walk away.
Minimum wage applies after every deduction
From 1 April 2026 the National Living Wage for anyone aged 21 or over is 12.71 pounds an hour, with 10.85 for 18 to 20 year olds and 8.00 for 16 and 17 year olds and apprentices, as set out by the Low Pay Commission and confirmed on gov.uk. That floor applies to what you actually receive after an umbrella margin and after any deduction for a uniform or training the job requires. If an agency deducts the cost of a DBS check or a tunic from your wages, that deduction has to be agreed with you in writing, shown on your payslip and it cannot take your pay for that week below the minimum.
In domiciliary care, time spent travelling between clients counts as working time for minimum wage purposes, so it should be on your timesheet. For sleep-in shifts, the Supreme Court decided in Royal Mencap Society v Tomlinson-Blake in 2021 that only the hours you are awake and working count towards the minimum wage, so a flat sleep-in allowance is normal and legal. Your Key Information Document should say how sleep-ins are paid.
Holiday pay at 12.07 percent
Agency workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year like every other worker. Because agency hours are irregular, the Employment Rights (Amendment, Revocation and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2023 set a simple rule for leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024: holiday accrues at 12.07 percent of the hours you work in each pay period.
Agencies are allowed to pay this as rolled up holiday pay, which means an uplift of 12.07 percent on each payslip, itemised as a separate line. What to watch for is a rate quoted as including holiday pay. A rate of 15 pounds an hour including holiday pay is really 13.38 an hour plus 1.62 of holiday pay. Divide the headline figure by 1.1207 to find your true hourly rate, and compare agencies on that number, not the headline.
If your agency accrues holiday rather than rolling it up, you need to book leave and be paid for it when you take it, and anything you have accrued and not taken must be paid when you leave.
Deductions you can expect to see
Pension is the usual surprise. An agency has to enrol you into a workplace pension once you earn more than 192 pounds a week, though it can delay enrolment for up to three months from your start date. The minimum contribution is 5 percent from you, including tax relief, and 3 percent from the employer.
Student loan repayments come off automatically once your earnings cross the threshold for your plan. Tax will be higher than it should be if you are on an emergency code, which happens when the agency has no P45 or starter checklist for you. Fill in the HMRC starter checklist when you register and the code should be right from the first payslip.
Your payslip must be itemised and, since April 2019, where your pay varies with the time you work it must show the number of hours you are being paid for.
After 12 weeks in the same place
Once you have worked 12 weeks in the same role for the same hirer, the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 entitle you to the same basic pay and holiday as a comparable member of their own staff. We have set out how the 12 weeks are counted in a separate article on agency workers regulations and the 12 weeks rule.
Six things to check on your first payslip
Check that the hours match your signed timesheets. Check that the hourly rate matches your Key Information Document. Check that holiday pay is either shown as its own line or being accrued. Check your tax code and that it is not an emergency one. Check that National Insurance is being deducted at the employee rate and nothing more. Check that any pension or other deduction is one you agreed to. If any of these is wrong, raise it with the agency the same week, in writing, and keep the reply.
Flamingo Workforce pays support workers weekly for the hours they work, gives every worker a Key Information Document at registration and will tell you in plain terms how you are paid before your first shift. If you are thinking about agency work and want to talk it through, get in touch through flamingoworkforce.com.