Could Mercor contractors have employment rights?

Do not wait to check legal deadlines

Registering here does not file a tribunal claim, notify Acas, suspend a legal deadline or establish legal representation. Time limits depend on your circumstances and can be short. If you may wish to bring a claim, seek advice promptly rather than waiting for our investigation or future proceedings.

Read Acas guidance on early conciliation and time limits.

The difference between a contractor and a worker

UK law recognises a category called a worker. It sits between an employee and someone genuinely running an independent business for their own clients. You do not need to be a full employee to have worker rights.

Depending on the circumstances, workers can have rights to:

• paid statutory holiday;
• protection against unlawful deductions from pay;
• the National Minimum Wage; and
• statutory rest and working-time protections.

Government guidance explains why the real relationship matters alongside the written contract.

Why does the contract not decide the answer?

In Uber BV v Aslam [2021] UKSC 5, the UK Supreme Court held that drivers described in their contracts as independent contractors were workers. The Court considered how the arrangement operated, including who set pay and terms, how work was controlled and what happened when standards were not met.

In Autoclenz Ltd v Belcher [2011] UKSC 41, the Court likewise examined the true working relationship rather than treating the written terms as conclusive.

What does the law look at?

No single question determines worker status. A tribunal considers the relationship as a whole. Three areas are particularly relevant to this investigation.

1. Did you personally have to perform the work?

Worker status normally involves an obligation to do the work personally. If you were chosen for your own experience and expected to complete the project yourself, that may matter. A genuine, unrestricted ability to send someone else can point the other way; a limited substitution arrangement does not necessarily prevent worker status.

2. Were you running an independent business with Mercor as your customer?

A genuinely self-employed professional may provide services to clients through their own business. The question is whether that describes your engagement, or whether you personally worked in a relationship where Mercor exercised a material degree of control. The answer depends on the facts of each engagement.

3. How much control did Mercor exercise?

Relevant questions include:

• Who set your rate of pay and the terms of the engagement?
• Were your hours recorded, capped or expected at particular times?
• Were meetings or training required, and was your activity monitored?
• Could recorded hours be rejected or removed?
• Was your work reviewed against project standards?
• Could Mercor remove you from a project, or did performance affect access to future work?

No single factor decides the case. The overall relationship matters.

Why are we investigating Mercor?

Mercor's own published policies describe features that may be relevant to the worker-status test. Mercor says hourly contracts are its most common type. Its contract guidance says work on those contracts is tracked through the Insightful desktop application, including tasks, meetings and required training. It also says each contract has a weekly hours cap that the project team must approve or adjust.

Mercor's time-tracking policy says Insightful screenshots help verify recorded work. It describes reviewing screenshots, activity and context before removing logged hours. The same policy describes feedback and correction of work, with continuing quality issues potentially ending an assignment and affecting future opportunities.

At least one Mercor UK role advertised a minimum weekly commitment and collaboration during UK business hours while describing the engagement as independent contracting.

These published features do not automatically establish worker status. They are reasons to investigate how each UK contractor's engagement operated.

Why does worker status matter?

The principal financial issue being investigated is holiday pay. Almost all people who qualify as workers have statutory paid annual leave, generally 5.6 weeks per year.

For each potential claim, we need to assess whether the person qualified as a worker, when qualifying work was done, the hours and pay involved, any holiday pay already paid and any entitlement still outstanding.

Is the claim simply 12.07% of everything I earned?

No.

The calculation depends on when you worked and your working pattern. For qualifying irregular-hours and part-year workers, statutory holiday accrues at 12.07% of hours worked in a pay period for leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024.

For those workers and leave years, the rules also permit rolled-up holiday pay. Where used, it is an additional payment based on pay in each pay period and should be clearly shown separately on the payslip.

Different rules may apply to earlier periods or other working patterns. It would be wrong to apply 12.07% to every pound a Mercor contractor has ever earned. We collect project dates, hours, rates and payment history to assess any potential claim properly.

What if Mercor already paid me holiday pay?

Tell us. Holiday pay already properly paid must be taken into account. The registration form asks whether any Mercor payment separately showed holiday pay or rolled-up holiday pay. You can upload a payment record to your account if you have one.

What about hours Mercor did not pay?

There may be a separate issue where work was performed but payment was withheld or reduced. Workers have statutory protection against unlawful deductions from wages.

Mercor's published policy describes circumstances in which logged hours may be reviewed and removed before payment. Whether a particular deduction was lawful depends on the facts, contract and legal status of the individual.

The registration process asks separately about removed or rejected hours, unpaid meetings or training, and other work you believe was unpaid.

Does this mean I was an employee?

Not necessarily. This investigation is primarily about worker status, which is broader than employee status. Someone can be a worker without being an employee. Worker status can be enough for statutory holiday pay and protection against unlawful deductions. Employee status requires a separate assessment.

What about my tax status?

Employment rights and tax status are separate legal questions. Government guidance recognises that a person's status for employment rights does not necessarily determine their tax status. A worker-status claim does not by itself decide your tax position.

What will determine my individual claim?

Every case depends on its own facts. Useful records may include:

• Mercor contracts, project names and dates;
• hourly rates, hours worked and Insightful records;
• Mercor earnings and Stripe or Wise payment records;
• project instructions, emails and messages;
• meeting or training requirements;
• records of removed or rejected hours; and
• records of any holiday pay.

You do not need all of this before registering. You can create an account, save what you know and return to add documents or details later.