Former IT contractor, Rob Crossland, founded Parasol as a direct result of becoming totally frustrated with the mountains of paperwork and sheer hassle involved with freelancing. He had a gut feeling that any company that could help freelancers and contractors maximise their income whilst minimising the hassle of being self-employed had to be a sure-fire winner. And he was right.

Rob’s years of contracting also gave him a healthy respect for the tax man and the importance of keeping on the right side of the law. That’s why his vision for Parasol involved always doing what’s right, not what’s easy for its employees, interpreting HMRC legislation in a whiter than white way that allows contractors to sleep at night.

Parasol was formally launched in 2000 and rapidly built a healthy base of contractor employees, largely by developing partnerships with the recruitment agencies that place them. Now in its ninth year, it has looked after the needs of some 35,000 contractors and this figure continues to increase as the company expands into new market sectors across the UK. Parasol maintains impressive partnerships with 2,500 recruitment agencies including industry leading companies such as Hays, Alexander Mann, Sthree Group, Reed, LA International, Rullion and Rethink.

Going from strength to strength

Contractors and recruitment agencies often comment about the outstanding quality of Parasol’s people. The company’s recruitment policy of hiring qualified accountants, talented payroll professionals and lovely people to answer the phone ensures contractors don’t have to worry about getting paid.

In November 2006 Rob led an MBO of Parasol, backed by the private equity firm, Inflexion. Parasol has achieved tremendous average annual growth of 280% and now boasts a turnover in excess of £300m. The company employs over 100 staff at its head office in Warrington, Cheshire and has recently established a regional sales office in London with a further regional sales presence in Scotland.

Earlier this year, ever looking for more opportunities, ClearSky Accounting (the new name for Quay Accounting) was brought into the Parasol Family. This limited company and contractor tax specialist shares the same values and excellent customer service.The buyout is the first of several planned strategic acquisitions in Parasol’s ambition to become one of the biggest contractor service providers in Europe, and sees the start of the company’s development in to a ‘one stop shop’, where all a contractor’s career requirements will be met from first job through to retirement.

Award winning service

The Parasol team are proud as punch of the large number of business awards and accolades achieved over recent years: ISO9001; 2010, 2008, 2006 and 2005 Sunday Times Fast Track 100; 2008 and 2006 Sunday Times Top Track 250; 2007, 2008, 2010 Best Companies Award; Investors in People Award as well as receiving the 2007 and 2005 ATSCo Staffing Service Provider of the year award for our excellent customer care.

Highly respected within our industry we are founder members of the Freelancer and Contractor Services Association (FCSA), have strong affiliation to the Professional Contractors Group, are affiliate members of APSCo.

Part of the Parasol family