Employees with Multiple Jobs

When your employee tells you they have another job, it's natural to wonder what this means for your payroll duties. The good news is that in most cases, you simply continue running your payroll as normal — but there are some specific situations where you'll need to take extra steps, particularly around National Insurance contributions.

Your Basic Responsibilities

When an employee works multiple jobs, each employer normally operates their payroll independently. You calculate and deduct tax and National Insurance contributions (NICs) based only on what you pay them, and any other employer does the same for their job.

The employee will have a tax code for each job. Their main job typically uses their standard Personal Allowance tax code (such as 1257L for 2025/26), while secondary jobs usually use a BR (Basic Rate) or D0 (Higher Rate) tax code, meaning tax is deducted from the first pound earned in that job. HMRC assigns these codes, not you.

You don't need to know how much your employee earns elsewhere or coordinate with their other employer — unless you fall into the specific circumstances outlined below.

When You Must Aggregate Earnings

There's an important exception: if your employee has more than one job with you, or with another employer you "carry out business in association" with, you may need to combine (aggregate) their earnings from both jobs when calculating National Insurance contributions.

This doesn't change how you calculate their PAYE tax — that stays separate for each job. But for NICs purposes, you may need to treat their combined earnings as a single amount.

What Does "Business in Association" Mean?

You're carrying out business in association with another employer if you share significant resources or serve a common purpose. HMRC considers factors including whether you:

• Share accommodation, employees, equipment or customers to a significant degree
• Have a shared business purpose

This commonly applies when businesses have a holding company structure or shared ownership. If you're unsure whether this applies to you, contact the HMRC Employer Helpline for guidance.

The Exception: When It's Not Reasonably Practicable

You may not need to aggregate earnings if you can demonstrate to HMRC that it's not "reasonably practicable" to do so. This recognises that some business structures make aggregation difficult or impossible to manage.

How to Calculate Aggregated Earnings

If you do need to aggregate earnings, follow these steps:

First, handle each job separately:

• Calculate, record and report pay, income tax and NICs as normal for each job
• If your employee works for another associated employer, you'll each do this independently

Then aggregate the NICs:

1. Add together the earnings from each job

2. Use these aggregated earnings to calculate the employer's NICs

3. Use the aggregated earnings to calculate the employee's NICs and work out if any additional employee NICs are due (beyond what's already been recorded for each separate job)

4. Pay HMRC the employer National Insurance and any extra employee NICs based on the aggregated earnings

5. Update the year-to-date NICs figures in your employee's payroll record to reflect the NICs for aggregated earnings

6. Set the 'Aggregated earnings indicator' to 'Yes' in your employee's payroll record

7. Report the payroll information to HMRC in your next Full Payment Submission

If earnings are aggregated, you must also calculate and deduct any student loan amounts from the aggregated earnings.

Update the other payroll record:

For the employee's other job (whether with you under a different Payroll ID or with an associated employer):

1. Enter '0.00' for all year-to-date NICs fields

2. Enter '0.00' for employer NICs in this period

3. Set the 'Aggregated earnings indicator' to 'Yes'

You'll need to choose which payroll record you use for recording the aggregated earnings — either yours or the associated employer's. If the employee has multiple jobs with you under different Payroll IDs, you choose which one to use.

What Your Employee Needs to Know

If your employee expects to earn more than £41,865 across their multiple jobs, they can apply to HMRC to delay paying some of their National Insurance contributions. This is something they arrange directly with HMRC, not through you.

Record Keeping

Maintain clear records showing:

• Separate earnings for each job
• How you've calculated aggregated NICs (if applicable)
• Which payroll record holds the aggregated earnings
• Communication with any associated employers about the arrangement

This documentation will be important if HMRC queries your NICs calculations or if the employee has questions about their pay.

Sources

• What to do if your employee has more than 1 job
• Employer Further Guide to PAYE and NICs (CWG2)

This article provides general guidance based on current HMRC rules. For advice specific to your situation, speak to your accountant.