Your first consulting client is usually your current network: The offer, the price and the email

The first consulting client almost never comes from a website, a directory or a cold message to a stranger. It comes from someone who already knows what you can do: a former colleague who moved to another firm, a supplier who has watched you fix their problem for three years, a manager who left and now has a budget of her own. The work is found, not marketed, and that is good news for an employed professional, because the network already exists and the marketing budget does not need to.

This post is the practical version. It covers the contract check to do before anything else, how to turn a corporate specialism into an offer someone can buy, how to price the first piece of work, the email that asks for it, and the small amount of tax administration that follows. It draws on my own first engagement, a piece of consulting for a London company that paid £8,600 and taught me most of what is below.

First, the contract check

Before you write to anyone, read your employment contract for three clauses. The first is an outside business interests or second job clause, which may require you to seek permission before doing paid work elsewhere, or to disclose it. The second is a conflict of interest or confidentiality clause, which will almost certainly prevent you working for a competitor, using your employer's information, or approaching its clients. The third is the working time opt-out, because combined hours above the 48-hour average can be an issue if you have not signed one.

A blanket ban on all outside work is uncommon in professional contracts and, where it exists, is hard for an employer to justify for work that has nothing to do with them. A requirement to ask permission is common and should be respected: an email to HR describing the work in general terms, confirming it is outside working hours and unrelated to the employer's business, is usually answered with a yes and protects you completely. Do the work for a competitor or with your employer's material and none of the rest of this post will help you.

The offer: one problem, fixed scope, fixed fee

The most common mistake is to offer yourself. "I am available for consulting in supply chain" is not something anyone can buy. "I will audit your inbound logistics costs against three benchmarks and give you a prioritised list of savings, in two weeks, for a fixed fee" is. The difference is that the second one names a problem the buyer already has, a deliverable they can picture, a timescale they can plan around and a price they can approve.

The price: a day rate as a floor, a fixed fee as the offer

You need a day rate even if you never quote one, because it is the floor under every fixed fee. The usual starting point is your salary divided by the working days in a year, then multiplied to account for the fact that a contractor carries no holiday, pension, sick pay, equipment or continuity. Multiples of 1.5 to 2.5 are widely used; the pricing post goes into the arithmetic and the market comparisons. Then quote a fixed fee for the scoped piece of work, which is easier for the buyer to approve and rewards you for being fast rather than slow.

My own first engagement was priced badly in exactly the way this example is designed to avoid: I estimated the hours, multiplied by a number that felt fair, and only later understood what the work was worth to the client. It still paid £8,600, which was more than I had ever earned outside a salary, and it taught me that the client did not care about my hours. They cared about the result and the date.

The email

The email that gets a first client is short, specific and sent to someone who already trusts you. It is not a pitch. It is a note from a person they know, mentioning a problem they have, offering to fix a bounded piece of it, and making the next step easy. Three to five of these, to the right people, is the whole marketing campaign for a first engagement.

Three things about that email. It refers to a specific conversation, so it is clearly not a mass mailing. It names the deliverable, the timescale and the commercial shape without quoting a number, which belongs on the one-page scope where it can sit next to the value. And it gives the recipient an easy no, which paradoxically makes the yes more likely, because nobody feels cornered.

Who to send it to

The admin, which is smaller than people fear

Consulting income is trading income. If your gross receipts from self-employment exceed £1,000 in a tax year, you register for self-assessment by 5 October following the end of that tax year, so income received in 2026/27 means registering by 5 October 2027 and filing by 31 January 2028. Below £1,000 gross the trading allowance covers it and no registration is needed. The tax is at your marginal rate on top of your salary, so a higher-rate taxpayer should set aside roughly 40% of the profit. The employed plus self-employed post covers how the two interact.

Invoice from your own name as a sole trader for the first engagement; a limited company can wait until the income justifies its costs. Get a one-page agreement signed that states the scope, the fee, the payment terms and who owns the output. Ask for half up front. And keep a simple record of income and expenses from the first day, because Making Tax Digital will eventually reach sole traders at lower income levels and the habit is cheaper to form now.

What the first engagement is for

The fee is the least important thing the first engagement gives you. It gives you a reference, a case study you can describe without naming the client, a corrected estimate of how long the work really takes, and the answer to the question the reversible bet exists to ask: will someone pay for this? If the answer is yes, the second and third engagements come from the first, because a delighted client tells two people. If the answer is no after five well-aimed emails, the offer needs changing, not the effort.

Consulting was not the path I chose, because it sells hours and I wanted something that would earn while I was in a meeting. But it was the first money I ever made outside a salary, and for many of the people who take the assessment on this site it is the right first path: cheap to test, quick to pay, and built entirely on what you already know. Send the emails. The worst outcome is five polite replies and a clearer offer.

This is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Your employment contract, your sector and your circumstances determine what outside work you may do and how it is taxed; take independent advice before you start, and check GOV.UK for the current self-assessment rules.

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