Employee, worker or self-employed?

The question whether an individual is an employee, worker or self-employed is complicated, but it is best to start with the statutory definition used to determine entitlement to most statutory rights, found in Section 230 Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA 1996).

This says that an employee is somebody who works under a contract of employment (whether or not it is written down). A worker is any other individual who works under a contract “to do or perform personally any work or services for another party to the contract, whose status is not by virtue of the contract that of a client or customer of any profession or business undertaking carried on by the individual”. Through case law, Judges have developed a series of key concepts to explain the difference between the categories of employee, worker and the self-employed.