Compensation

Pension Contributions

ESPROFILER uses the UK Government approved Nest scheme for pension contributions.

At ESPROFILER, default contributions are set as the following:

• Personal Contributions: 5%
• Company Contributions: 3%

The personal contributions are taken out of your net salary. Nest will then top-up your contributions into your pension pot with the 20% tax relief from the government. Note though, that if you are a 40% tax payer, you should look in detail at claiming tax relief as you are likely owed money.

Making additional contributions

You can opt-in to sacrifice more of your own salary automatically into your pension. If you want to do this please speak with Edward Parsons, our Director of Operations, who will be able to arrange this for you. note though that ESPROFILER will not increase their company contributions to match any increase in your personal contributions.

Claiming Tax Relief

If you are a 40% tax payer then you should be receiving pension contributions at 40%. The default for Nest is only 20%, as such, you are eligible to claim the additional tax relief as a tax rebate.

Before the 2025 tax year, this required a full government self assessment tax return to be filed. However, since the 2024-25 tax year, you can claim the tax relief online through the HMRC online service instead, which is a dedicated tool for this purpose.

As an example, if you are a 40% tax payer and earn £50,000 per year. By default, you would have paid £2,500 (5%) of your salary into a pension. This means that you are eligible to claim ~£625 back from the government to cover the additional 20% in tax relief that you are owed. Note that the exact figure may vary depending on your own PAYE tax code and circumstances, or if you make different contributions,

Stock Options

Stock options are granted on a case-by-case basis, and are not guaranteed to be granted to all employees. We use Carta to manage our stock options program. You will be able to view your stock options and their value in the Carta platform, and if you wish to exercise them you can do so through the platform.

EMI Scheme

ESPROFILER Stock Options are awarded as part of the EMI Scheme. This means:

You will not have to pay Income Tax or National Insurance if you buy the shares for at least the market value they had when you were granted the option. If you were given a discount on the market value, you might have to pay Income Tax or National Insurance on the difference between what you pay and what the shares were worth. If you buy the shares within 10 years of being offered them, you will not pay Income Tax or National Insurance on the difference.

Note that you will still be responsible for paying Capital Gains Tax if you sell the shares.