If you are a mother returning to work after a career break or you are looking to transition to flexible working to fit around your family commitments then we suggest you think about what kind of working pattern would suit you and your family commitments.

We have provided some guideline on the different ways of working flexibly to help you identify which will work best for you. Think about the amount of flexibility you need, the hours you can work, where geographically you could work and what childcare arrangements you will need.

We define flexible working as those positions that do not fall into the traditional full-time working pattern of typically 9am to 5pm, five days a week.

The nature of a flexible position is dependent on the employer’s particular project and the availability of a suitable employee but will typically fall into one of the following categories:

• Part-time
• Reduced hours
• Term Time
• Job Sharing
• Freelance/Contracting
• Remote working

Part-time
Part-time work has no legal definition but government statistics usually define it as working fewer than 30 hours a week. In practice it generally means working less than full-time.

Working 'half time' (two and a half days per week) is common, though organisations have been increasingly offering valued workers alternatives, such as a few hours a week to just less than full time.

Reduced Hours
Working reduced hours allows employees to determine a set number of reduced hours in a working day and is generally agreed around a later start time and an earlier finish time. Working reduced hours suits those employees who are only able to work within certain hours of the day, such as school hours e.g. 10am-3pm.

Term Time
Term-time working is where employees work an agreed number of hours per week during the school terms only. This allows those employees who have children of school age to be at home during the school holidays.

Job Sharing
Job sharing is where two, or sometimes more, people share people share the work-load of an otherwise full-time employee. The pay and benefits are divided in proportion to their hours of working. Job-sharers may work split days, split weeks or alternate weeks; or their hours may overlap.

Freelance/Contracting
Freelance or Contract workers are temporary workers who are generally hired on a fixed-term contract for a specific project which is typically short-to-medium term. This can be full-or part-time, throughout the duration of the project. Employment ends on completion of the project.

Most freelancers are paid on a monthly basis (or weekly if the contract time is less). Freelancers are paid a day rate which is basically a gross figure before income tax and NI are deducted.

Before you consider freelancing you will need to understand the tax and NI implication of doing so. There are various ways of setting your self up as a freelancer to reduce or control the amount of tax and NI you pay - setting up as a limited company or going self-employed being the most common.

There is new legislation governing freelance/contract workers in the UK so we advise you to contact the Inland Revenue to make sure that you are working in the correct way. For information, see HMRC's website (http://www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk).

Remote working
Remote working - applicable to any of the above job types - is when an employee…undertakes the project for all or part of the working week at a location remote from employer’s workplace: in most instances at home.