[Silhouette]

I think a lot of people, especially @jangosteve, mistake freelancing for contracting.

The way you're using the term "contracting" is not the way everyone does. What you're talking about is short-term, fixed-term contracts, and otherwise sounds a lot like disguised employment, and as you mentioned HMRC might have something to say about that if they had time. However, there are plenty of other models for contract work that don't have the structure and limitations you described but are still clearly contracting rather than employment.

[ayers]

The way you're using the term "contracting" is not the way everyone does.

Different locations refer to contracting differently and this is part of the issue when people talk about contracting and freelancing. You need to work out the location in which they are referring to.

In London and the UK this is indeed how people use the term “contracting”. London has a whole market built around “contracting” the way nicwise describes.

[Silhouette]

In London and the UK this is indeed how people use the term “contracting”

It's how some people in London and the UK use the term and how some of their contracts are set up. But plenty of other people would also describe themselves as "contractors" despite having a different kind of contractual arrangement, and since no-one has some magical authority to define the term I think your generalisation is unfounded. If nothing else, a lot of boundaries have been deliberately blurred since IR35 came along, so the whole permie vs. contractor distinction hasn't been what it used to be for at least a decade.