Shouldn't I have a car, or money for one?
Discussion
Just received a formal offer of employment after being freelance for 2.5 years. The job will be architecting, and delivering IT solutions, managing the technical relationship, and training customers. The company produces enterprise grade storage software, and while it is currently a WFH role, as things return to normal there is an expectation that I will need to travel to customer sites in the UK and EMEA region up to 50% of my time. Salary + bonus is around the £100k pa mark. Usual benefits like pension, healthcare and stock options are included. All pretty standard so far. The only thing is that there is no mention of a car or a car allowance anywhere. The contract of employment just states that reasonable expenses will be paid.
During the interview process, I was told on more than one occasion that travel would be a necessary part of the job, so I had taken it for granted that some form of car benefits would be included in the package. However, I haven't had a job which wasn't from a fixed place of work since 2005 so I'm not really sure whether I should be expecting either a company car or a car allowance. I have 4 cars and a motorcycle, but none of them are suitable for doing business miles in for various reasons including age, image, roadworthiness etc. My daily is a 30-year-old 7-series on 90k miles. It's much nicer than a shed, but likely not reliable enough for business mileage. Everything works, but there's no modern facilities like infotainment and it's not even close to being ULEZ complaint. My previous BMW is off the road while I work on its engine, and the 15-year-old Audi estate will need to stay home for my disabled mother (who lives with me) to use or be driven in. And there's no way I'm putting business miles on my weekend car.
I haven't started the job yet so I don't really know how many business miles I'd be doing, but I really do think there should be a car allowance there. I don't fancy buying a car out of my own pocket just to do business mileage and then have to claim mileage back. For one, I'd have to find somewhere to put it.
Are my expectations out of date?
During the interview process, I was told on more than one occasion that travel would be a necessary part of the job, so I had taken it for granted that some form of car benefits would be included in the package. However, I haven't had a job which wasn't from a fixed place of work since 2005 so I'm not really sure whether I should be expecting either a company car or a car allowance. I have 4 cars and a motorcycle, but none of them are suitable for doing business miles in for various reasons including age, image, roadworthiness etc. My daily is a 30-year-old 7-series on 90k miles. It's much nicer than a shed, but likely not reliable enough for business mileage. Everything works, but there's no modern facilities like infotainment and it's not even close to being ULEZ complaint. My previous BMW is off the road while I work on its engine, and the 15-year-old Audi estate will need to stay home for my disabled mother (who lives with me) to use or be driven in. And there's no way I'm putting business miles on my weekend car.
I haven't started the job yet so I don't really know how many business miles I'd be doing, but I really do think there should be a car allowance there. I don't fancy buying a car out of my own pocket just to do business mileage and then have to claim mileage back. For one, I'd have to find somewhere to put it.
Are my expectations out of date?
I know plenty of people on a fraction of that salary who don't get any kind of car allowance and need to use their cars to go to sites etc. they just claim back mileage allowance and nothing more. I have just embarked on a total career change, previous roles included car allowance and mileage allowance, new role is far less money and no car allowance just mileage.
Edited by MonkeyMatt on Monday 11th October 17:30
MonkeyMatt said:
I know plenty of people on a fraction of that salary who don't get any kind of car allowance and need to use their cars to go to sites etc.
Thanks Matt. What happens if they don't have a car or a suitable car? Are they expected to buy one?This is a fairly senior role which is why I'm surprised a car allowance isn't offered.
LunarOne said:
I have 4 cars and a motorcycle, but none of them are suitable for doing business miles in for various reasons including age, image, roadworthiness etc. My daily is a 30-year-old 7-series on 90k miles. It's much nicer than a shed, but likely not reliable enough for business mileage. Everything works, but there's no modern facilities like infotainment and it's not even close to being ULEZ complaint. My previous BMW is off the road while I work on its engine, and the 15-year-old Audi estate will need to stay home for my disabled mother (who lives with me) to use or be driven in. And there's no way I'm putting business miles on my weekend car.
I haven't started the job yet so I don't really know how many business miles I'd be doing, but I really do think there should be a car allowance there. I don't fancy buying a car out of my own pocket just to do business mileage and then have to claim mileage back. For one, I'd have to find somewhere to put it.
I get a car allowance, but I'm sure these days it's seen as a way of paying me more without having to pay as much into my pension as it's money that is not part of my salary. My employer has no stipulations on what I provide with my car allowance beyond it being a car, road legal and insured. Some folks I know take the train unless it's awkward when they hire a car out of their allowance. They can reclaim the train on expenses and similarly the fuel (and claim it back from HMRC as private mileage). I haven't started the job yet so I don't really know how many business miles I'd be doing, but I really do think there should be a car allowance there. I don't fancy buying a car out of my own pocket just to do business mileage and then have to claim mileage back. For one, I'd have to find somewhere to put it.
Also it sounds as if you want another car for business use irrespective of it being a company car or allowance - so you; need to find somewhere to put it anyway - unless you go the rental route.
I'd check with your prospective new employer - but I do see organisations greening themselves this way - not encouraging car use and trying to shape behaviour to the train...
I travel for work 70-80% of the time (pre-covid), and have never had a car allowance or company car. Most of my work is either in London or international so a car wouldn't be of much help. If your clients are likely to be in London or as you said EMA it may not be an issue.
I'm not sure that the salary level is any indicator of the need for a car - although it may dictate the quality of the car. I didn't get cars in lower paid job, and haven't got car in higher paid jobs either!
I'm not sure that the salary level is any indicator of the need for a car - although it may dictate the quality of the car. I didn't get cars in lower paid job, and haven't got car in higher paid jobs either!
51mes said:
I'd check with your prospective new employer - but I do see organisations greening themselves this way - not encouraging car use and trying to shape behaviour to the train...
Thanks for that. Once of my duties will be to set up and arrange demos of the product on site, and while it's a software product, it does require pretty beefy hardware with lots and lots of data storage capacity, so I'm not sure the train is going to be feasible. Unless the demo runs in the cloud and isn't connected to the customer's infrastructure, which is a possibility. I don't know the answer to that one yet!LunarOne said:
MonkeyMatt said:
I know plenty of people on a fraction of that salary who don't get any kind of car allowance and need to use their cars to go to sites etc.
Thanks Matt. What happens if they don't have a car or a suitable car? Are they expected to buy one?This is a fairly senior role which is why I'm surprised a car allowance isn't offered.
LunarOne said:
Thanks Matt. What happens if they don't have a car or a suitable car? Are they expected to buy one?
This is a fairly senior role which is why I'm surprised a car allowance isn't offered.
Thee way it worked with me, and a couple of others I know is basically, you take on a job that states you need to use a car, if you don't have a car you use public transport (if possible), or occasionally they will provide a hire car depending on the requirement. I know someone who had to buy a car for work that did not have an allowance. I guess it can be a situation sometimes as get a car or tough luck. If I didn't have a car I wouldn't actually be able to get to work. This is a fairly senior role which is why I'm surprised a car allowance isn't offered.
I know a lot of industries are moving away from company cars and car allowances, in some senior roles its just expected that you would have a car and use it occasionally, unless you are using it daily for work purposes
It's really something of a hangover from the BIK regimes of the baby boomers and the silent generation.
Back in the days of Labour squeezing the rich until the pips squeaked, taxation was so high that companies starting looking for every way they could find to make their employees feel better off without being crucified for tax, and for a long while the BIK on cars was absolutely tiny compared to the cost of buying and running your own car.
As a result, we ended up with an order of magnitude more company cars in the UK than any other country in Europe. Then the government changed the tax regime, and cars started to get a LOT more expensive, so more and more people started to ask for a cash alternative, and there are now just a tiny fraction of the number of company cars there used to be.
As a further result of this, companies are increasingly starting to wonder what the point is in having a specific car allowance, rather than just counting it as salary, which is pretty much where you find yourself.
You can lease a car these days for under £150 per month, or hire a car, use public transport or whatever else you fancy, but I wouldn't expect a company car these days.
Back in the days of Labour squeezing the rich until the pips squeaked, taxation was so high that companies starting looking for every way they could find to make their employees feel better off without being crucified for tax, and for a long while the BIK on cars was absolutely tiny compared to the cost of buying and running your own car.
As a result, we ended up with an order of magnitude more company cars in the UK than any other country in Europe. Then the government changed the tax regime, and cars started to get a LOT more expensive, so more and more people started to ask for a cash alternative, and there are now just a tiny fraction of the number of company cars there used to be.
As a further result of this, companies are increasingly starting to wonder what the point is in having a specific car allowance, rather than just counting it as salary, which is pretty much where you find yourself.
You can lease a car these days for under £150 per month, or hire a car, use public transport or whatever else you fancy, but I wouldn't expect a company car these days.
LunarOne said:
Thanks for that. Once of my duties will be to set up and arrange demos of the product on site, and while it's a software product, it does require pretty beefy hardware with lots and lots of data storage capacity, so I'm not sure the train is going to be feasible. Unless the demo runs in the cloud and isn't connected to the customer's infrastructure, which is a possibility. I don't know the answer to that one yet!
We do all our demos via web connections to labs either physcial or totally virtualised in the cloud - as do all of our suppliers. I expect one of the key selling features is ease of management & data visualisation to allow managers views of the status and capacity of the devices - the ability just to load it into a browser window on anyones laptop - or even an IPAD helps with the idea of management simplicity rather than a huge laptop...
MonkeyMatt said:
Thee way it worked with me, and a couple of others I know is basically, you take on a job that states you need to use a car, if you don't have a car you use public transport (if possible), or occasionally they will provide a hire car depending on the requirement. I know someone who had to buy a car for work that did not have an allowance. I guess it can be a situation sometimes as get a car or tough luck. If I didn't have a car I wouldn't actually be able to get to work.
I know a lot of industries are moving away from company cars and car allowances, in some senior roles its just expected that you would have a car and use it occasionally, unless you are using it daily for work purposes
Which is fine on the face of it. But personal cars are personal; so you can get odd situations. For example a consultant working for a company which touts it's green credentials turn's up to a client site in a bright orange Dodge Challenger which will struggle to get 18mpg.I know a lot of industries are moving away from company cars and car allowances, in some senior roles its just expected that you would have a car and use it occasionally, unless you are using it daily for work purposes
plasticpig said:
MonkeyMatt said:
Thee way it worked with me, and a couple of others I know is basically, you take on a job that states you need to use a car, if you don't have a car you use public transport (if possible), or occasionally they will provide a hire car depending on the requirement. I know someone who had to buy a car for work that did not have an allowance. I guess it can be a situation sometimes as get a car or tough luck. If I didn't have a car I wouldn't actually be able to get to work.
I know a lot of industries are moving away from company cars and car allowances, in some senior roles its just expected that you would have a car and use it occasionally, unless you are using it daily for work purposes
Which is fine on the face of it. But personal cars are personal; so you can get odd situations. For example a consultant working for a company which touts it's green credentials turn's up to a client site in a bright orange Dodge Challenger which will struggle to get 18mpg.I know a lot of industries are moving away from company cars and car allowances, in some senior roles its just expected that you would have a car and use it occasionally, unless you are using it daily for work purposes
Plenty of people find themselves in the situation of either use your personal car or if you don't like it get a different job, I'm not saying thats right or wrong, its just how it is.
My new employer has to no say over what car I drive to site and has to pay my mileage allowance either way, if they decide they have an issue they will have to pay towards a car, its simple as that.
My last business had an entire team of highly-paid consultants who spent at least half their time on client sites - not a car or car allowance in sight. We paid them more than handsomely so no one cared. That was from about 20 years ago and was relatively rare at first. Now it’s almost standard practice.
Oh and - in spite of me always thinking it mattered what car you turned up in at client sites, in 25 years as a strategy consultant, I think a client saw my car on about 4 occasions. On none of those occasions did I get a sense that they gave a s
t what the car was.
Oh and - in spite of me always thinking it mattered what car you turned up in at client sites, in 25 years as a strategy consultant, I think a client saw my car on about 4 occasions. On none of those occasions did I get a sense that they gave a s
t what the car was.LunarOne said:
I haven't started the job yet so I don't really know how many business miles I'd be doing, but I really do think there should be a car allowance there. I don't fancy buying a car out of my own pocket just to do business mileage and then have to claim mileage back. For one, I'd have to find somewhere to put it.
Are my expectations out of date?
If they DID decide to give you a car allowance then how would you find somewhere to put the “work” car?Are my expectations out of date?
Tbh the question should have been asked at Interview stage. You now need to determine how many miles you’ll be doing and what the Company’s Travel Policy is and then decide what our best course of action is. If they pay 45ppm it can actually be quite profitable if you’re doing a lot of mileage and running a shed. OTOH having a fully expensed car is a nice perk in itself (especially if you normally buy and run a new car). If the answer isnt what you want you have the choice of accepting it or looking elsewhere.
At my current place if you do over 5000 miles a year OR your role is designated as a car user you get an allowance, Anything less than that you get to claim 55ppm, and if you dont want to use your own car at all you can use Public Transport/taxis. However you’re normally told all that at Interview.
Is it a US based company? Firm I worked for got taken over by a US company and we had our car allowances rolled into our salary as they said US companies don't generally do car allowances. They carried on just paying petrol money (15p/mile).
I have to say it didn't take people long to forget they were really still getting the allowance, and some were very reluctant to use their cars for business. I left a couple of years later but hassle re using taxis for quite long journeys and buying full price train tickets was reaching a bit of a head.
I have to say it didn't take people long to forget they were really still getting the allowance, and some were very reluctant to use their cars for business. I left a couple of years later but hassle re using taxis for quite long journeys and buying full price train tickets was reaching a bit of a head.
I did ask the question and was given the answer that it's not something the company does for anyone. However they said they would pay travel expenses however I wanted to do it, even if it means hiring cars for particular trips as they find that works out much cheaper for them. But they expect the majority of my UK work to be in London which I can get to easily by train.
I'm not generally in the habit of having new cars, no. The only time I've done it was with my 330Ci when I last had a car allowance. I still have it, 20 years later but it needs fixing. In recent times I've been shedding (albeit very nice sheds) because I loathe debt and finance and prefer to just buy outright. And I don't really "get" leasing. Paying for a car and then not having anything to show for it at the end? Makes little sense to me. Well it does if I'm going to pay less than the depreciation I guess, but it still runs against the grain. I do have a nice little car for weekend use which is an "expensive" car, but I paid cash for it and I'm not willing to devalue it with business miles. If I got a car allowance I guess I'd have to clear out the garage and put another car in there. But that too would limit my ability to build the miniature collection I'm trying for. I'm also trying for an E30 3-series, an E31 850Ci/CSi. And a 928S as well. None of which I'd be doing business miles in either. I guess my 7-series is the ideal car for it if I were sure it would handle the miles. But it would be a shame to do those miles in a pristine E32 as well.
Anyway I've accepted the job as it is with no car allowance. The salary is probably enough for me to buy a cheap business miles car (Golf, 320d) if I find that I'm visiting clients outside of London often.
Thanks all for your thoughts!
I'm not generally in the habit of having new cars, no. The only time I've done it was with my 330Ci when I last had a car allowance. I still have it, 20 years later but it needs fixing. In recent times I've been shedding (albeit very nice sheds) because I loathe debt and finance and prefer to just buy outright. And I don't really "get" leasing. Paying for a car and then not having anything to show for it at the end? Makes little sense to me. Well it does if I'm going to pay less than the depreciation I guess, but it still runs against the grain. I do have a nice little car for weekend use which is an "expensive" car, but I paid cash for it and I'm not willing to devalue it with business miles. If I got a car allowance I guess I'd have to clear out the garage and put another car in there. But that too would limit my ability to build the miniature collection I'm trying for. I'm also trying for an E30 3-series, an E31 850Ci/CSi. And a 928S as well. None of which I'd be doing business miles in either. I guess my 7-series is the ideal car for it if I were sure it would handle the miles. But it would be a shame to do those miles in a pristine E32 as well.
Anyway I've accepted the job as it is with no car allowance. The salary is probably enough for me to buy a cheap business miles car (Golf, 320d) if I find that I'm visiting clients outside of London often.
Thanks all for your thoughts!
I just had my car allowance rolled over into my salary as my employed started to firm up role definitions. I don't mind, increased pension contributions and helps in declaring earnings for mortgages etc.
Company still pays us back at the usual 45/25p mile rate as required. I will say that it is interesting that they don't seem to have a car policy, previous employer was pretty specific (no 4x4s, no convertibles etc - it was pretty outdated and likely written in the late 90s).
I have an expectation of around 40% travel (pre-pandemic). As long as my fuel was paid, I didn't care. Travel was mainly to a train station anyway.
Company still pays us back at the usual 45/25p mile rate as required. I will say that it is interesting that they don't seem to have a car policy, previous employer was pretty specific (no 4x4s, no convertibles etc - it was pretty outdated and likely written in the late 90s).
I have an expectation of around 40% travel (pre-pandemic). As long as my fuel was paid, I didn't care. Travel was mainly to a train station anyway.
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