[ownagefool]

umbrella = you become an employee of them. they pay your taxes as if you were a typical pay-e employee, thus you'll hit the 40% tax bracket fairly quickly.

trust = tax avoidance structure, a trust is just one type, there are many others. http://www.contractoruk.com/ebt/

Ltd company[1] = starting your own offical company. Reason to do this is corp tax is only 20%. You need to pay that on your companies profit[2], but if you're patient it's pretty much all you need to pay[3]. Reason: Dividens are essentially tax free upto 31,865, if you have a spouce that's not earning, double this amount. Add in your tax-free allowance on income tax and a married couple can pull between £70-80k a year "tax-free" and you can defer anything else until later years. Your still paying your 20% corp tax on that income, but you also get resonable expenses. Your laptop, travel, maybe a phone for the most part is what is deemed resonable.

[1] This is the way the .GOV.UK wants you to avoid tax. If you have a non-working spouce, it's pretty much the best way until you start earning > 500 p/d and even then some would debate this is the way to do it.

[2] Profit = your companies income - your salary (not dividens) - expenses.

[3] OK so you'll probably want to set aside ~£1000 a year for accountant fees and ~£500 for insurance. Of course these are expenses, so come off your before your 20% corp-tax.