Autumn Budget 2026: What Changes for a UK Tradesperson in April

Quote a May job this winter, and after the Autumn Budget 2026 your labourer’s minimum rate is £13.21 an hour, not £12.71. Your own tax bill stays where it is; the labour line in that quote is what has to change.

That £13.21 is the National Living Wage for workers aged 21 and over, and it starts on 1 April 2027. Nothing else in the Autumn Budget 2026 reaches your costs as directly. Your personal allowance, tax bands, Class 4 National Insurance, employer National Insurance and the £90,000 VAT threshold all stay the same.

Take a labourer aged 22 on that rate, working 40 hours a week and paid weekly for 52 weeks. The figures are illustrative.

• Wages: £528.40 a week from April, up from £508.40. Over a year that’s £27,476.80, which is £1,040 more.
• Employer National Insurance: 15% of the pay above £96 a week, so £64.86 a week or £3,372.72 a year. That’s £156 more than this year.
• With the Employment Allowance: the £10,500 still covers three labourers like this one. A fourth would leave you £2,990.88 a year to pay.

An 18-year-old helper costs £873.60 more a year at 40 hours, and still no employer National Insurance. If any job you’ve already priced runs past 1 April, check the labour line in it now. Our breakdown of what a first employee really costs adds pension, holiday and insurance to the same labourer.

Your crew’s pay from 1 April 2027

The National Living Wage is the legal minimum hourly rate for workers aged 21 and over. The government sets it each year in regulations, on the advice of the Low Pay Commission, and it accepted the Commission’s 2027 rates in full. The new rates start on 1 April, not 6 April. The regulations that make them law hadn’t been laid by 30 October, but the rates themselves are settled.

Employer National Insurance doesn’t move: still 15% of each employee’s pay above £96 a week. The Employment Allowance, the HMRC relief that cuts an eligible employer’s National Insurance bill, stays at £10,500 a year. Under-21s and apprentices under 25 still carry no employer National Insurance on pay up to £967 a week.

Your own tax as a sole trader

Nothing in the Autumn Budget 2026 changes here, and by law it won’t for several years. The Finance Act 2026 already froze the £12,570 personal allowance and the £37,700 basic-rate band until 5 April 2031. Class 4 National Insurance, the self-employed contribution on profits, stays at 6% between £12,570 and £50,270 and 2% above that.

So a sole trader with £45,000 of taxable profit pays £6,486 of income tax and £1,945.80 of Class 4, a total of £8,431.80, in both 2026-27 and 2027-28. The freeze is the point. Each pound you add by raising your prices is taxed at 26% up to £50,270 of profit, and at 42% above it. These are England, Wales and Northern Ireland rates; Scotland sets its own income tax.

Two smaller changes help that same trader. If you claim your van on the flat mileage rate, the rate above 10,000 business miles rises from 25p to 35p, and the 55p rate for the first 10,000 miles is now permanent. At 15,000 business miles a year, that’s an extra £500 of deductions, or about £130 less tax and Class 4. The trading allowance also rises to £3,000, which matters for small side income rather than a full-time trade.

On Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, the thresholds don’t change. It’s a legal requirement, run by HMRC, to keep digital records and send quarterly updates once your income passes the threshold. The test is turnover before expenses, not profit, so the trader above has probably been in since April 2026. If you join in April 2027, at over £30,000 of turnover, you won’t get penalty points for late submission of your first four quarterly updates.

Vans, fuel and equipment

Fuel duty is the biggest cost change for a van-based trade, and it comes on 1 July 2027, not in April. The 5p cut now runs to 30 June 2027. After that, duty on diesel and petrol returns to its pre-2022 level plus inflation, rising by 7.64p a litre. Every 1,000 litres you buy costs £76.40 more in duty, or £91.68 if you can’t reclaim VAT.

For equipment, the writing-down allowance on the main pool falls from 14% to 12% from 6 April 2027. That’s the yearly tax relief on the value of kit you haven’t fully written off yet. Most small trades won’t feel it on new purchases. The £1 million Annual Investment Allowance is unchanged and already gives full relief on most of them.

If your staff take vans home, the van benefit charge rises to £4,310, and from April 2027 it goes through payroll rather than a P11D. Vehicle tax on most vans goes up to £375. And the lower rate of landfill tax rises by £5.95 a tonne in England and Northern Ireland, so expect tipping and skip charges to move from April.

VAT, CIS and what didn’t change

The £90,000 VAT registration threshold stays put, and so do the 20% and 5% rates. If you install insulation, heat pumps or solar panels in homes, the temporary zero rate ends on 31 March 2027. From 1 April 2027 that work goes back to 5%, and heat batteries join the relief. The tax point decides which rate applies, so check the dates on quotes for jobs that span the change. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme keeps its £400 million budget in 2027-28.

There’s no Construction Industry Scheme measure in the Autumn Budget 2026. The last CIS changes took effect in April 2026. Further ahead, the Budget confirms in-year automatic payments of income tax from April 2029, and VAT e-invoicing from 1 April 2029.

Every dated change in the Autumn Budget 2026

The Chancellor delivered the Budget on 28 October 2026. These figures come from HM Treasury’s Budget 2026 document, HMRC’s Overview of Tax Legislation and Rates and its rates annex.

What the Autumn Budget 2026 left undecided

The Autumn Budget 2026 is a set of announcements, not law. Most tax changes still have to pass in the Finance Bill 2026-27, the annual bill that turns them into law, and others need regulations. The wage rates are the safe line to act on now; treat the rest as confirmed only when the law is made.

• The Finance Bill 2026-27 text hadn’t been published by the end of October. The capital allowance changes, the trading allowance and van payrolling all depend on it, and Parliament can amend it.
• The van benefit, mileage rate and VAT changes each need their own regulations, which the government says will follow before April.
• The 1 July fuel duty rise is the stated plan, but the government says it will keep fuel prices under review.
• Statutory Sick Pay and auto-enrolment pension thresholds for 2027-28 weren’t in the Budget at all.