If you're going to consider employer's NI, are you also going to factor in pension contributions, paid time off, and other employment benefits that independents

If you're going to consider employer's NI, are you also going to factor in pension contributions, paid time off, and other employment benefits that independents generally don't receive? If you go back a few years, the financial advantage of paying via salary + dividends in terms of reduced NI payments roughly cancelled out the direct costs of having no employment perks, particularly paid time off. The difference varied slightly depending on the level of salary/turnover as the relevant thresholds were all different, but there wouldn't have been much in it for most people. Now that independents also get hit with either dividend taxes or IR35 arrangements, while employees receive additional benefits notably including significant employer pension contributions, the balance is heavily tilted towards an employment relationship in purely financial terms if you're comparing direct employee salary with freelance/contract business revenue. In theory, market forces should have pushed freelance and contract rates up to compensate for those changes, but in practice the opposite has happened. Because the IR35 changes have driven an industry-wide shift towards blanket inside-IR35 or umbrella policies at many larger clients all at the same time, they have been able to push their rates down to help offset their own extra costs (or, in some cases, simply stopped taking on independent labour altogether), and in one recent survey the average independent had actually reduced their rate this year. If we're looking at the overall financial situation for employees vs. (genuine) independents and not limiting the discussion to tax/NI specifically, you also have to look at flexibility, particularly issues like business expenses and the ability to spread your personal income over time if your business revenues are irregular. These are important aspects of flexible work that have also been damaged by the recent IR35 changes and will often end up costing a legitimate freelancer or contractor more now.