Tax on Exam Marking Income for Teachers (2026/27)

Almost every teacher who marks for an exam board eventually asks the same question, usually in July when the fee lands and is smaller than the contract said. Why has tax already been taken off something I was told was self-employed work, and do I still have to tell HMRC about it?

The answer is genuinely odd, it is very badly explained almost everywhere, and — unusually for this kind of question — it is fully documented in public sources. The exam board publishes its terms. HMRC publishes two internal manual pages that address examiners specifically. The National Insurance treatment sits in a statutory instrument from 1978 that you can read on legislation.gov.uk. This page works through all of them.

It is worth saying at the outset how this page differs from our guide to tax on tutoring income, because the two topics look similar and are not. On tutoring, the pension question ends in an honest shrug: we could not find a Teachers' Pensions source addressing self-employed tutoring directly, so we flagged our answer as a strong inference from the eligibility rules rather than a quoted fact. On examining, we can do much better than that, because the exam board itself documents what it does with pensions, and what it does is enrol you into its own scheme. That turns an inference into a demonstration. The tax mechanics diverge just as sharply: tutoring income arrives gross and untouched, examining income arrives with tax already removed, and that single difference changes everything downstream about allowances, registration and refunds.

If you want to know what the work pays before worrying about how it is taxed, start with our guide to exam marking pay.

The contradiction at the heart of examining income

Set out plainly, the position looks like a mistake:

• Income tax is deducted at source by the exam board, through PAYE, exactly as if you were an employee.
• National Insurance is not deducted, because you are categorised as a self-employed earner and Class 1 does not apply.
• Employment status is self-employed, stated expressly in the contract and not disturbed by the tax deduction.
• Self Assessment is still your responsibility, and the contract says so.
• Pensions are handled by the board through auto-enrolment into its own workplace scheme — an employer-style duty, applied to a non-employee.

Nothing there is an error. It is the accumulated result of a genuine legal oddity — a category of work that Parliament removed from the National Insurance employed-earner rules in 1978, combined with a practical tax collection arrangement HMRC has operated with examination bodies for decades, combined with auto-enrolment legislation from 2008 that uses a different definition of "worker" from the one the tax rules use. Three different regimes drawing three different boundaries around the same person produces exactly this.

The practical effect for you is that the money arrives net of income tax but is not settled, and the paperwork is yours.

What the exam board's own contract says

AQA publishes its Terms of appointment: Examiners/Team Leaders/Assistant Principal Examiners in its public filestore, which makes it the most directly quotable document available on this subject from any awarding body. Four clauses matter.

Clause 1.2 establishes the basic relationship: "The Contractor is not the employee or agent of AQA and has no authority to represent and must not claim to represent or enter into any commitments on behalf of AQA in any respect."

Clause 1.3 is the one that matters for tax:

"Nothing in this Contract is intended to make nor shall it make AQA the employer of the Contractor. The Contractor is classified as self-employed and the Contractor must not claim that they are an employee, director or officer of AQA."

Clause 7.1 — which sits, tellingly, under the heading "Indemnity" rather than "Fees" — is the clearest statement of the contradiction you will find anywhere:

"From 6 April 2014 the Contractor shall either provide a P45 or complete a contractor starter check sheet at the commencement of the contract. Using the information provided AQA will deduct income tax at the relevant rate from all payments of fees. However, the collection of this information and the deduction of Income Tax does not mean that the Contractor is an employee of AQA. The Contractor is self-employed, will need to complete a self-assessment tax return and is responsible for the payment of any remaining applicable tax and NI."

Read that again, because it disposes of two widespread staffroom beliefs at once. Tax having been deducted does not make you an employee. And tax having been deducted does not discharge your Self Assessment obligation — the contract says explicitly that you "will need to complete a self-assessment tax return". The remainder of clause 7.1 is an indemnity under which the contractor indemnifies AQA against any tax, National Insurance, penalties or interest levied on AQA if the deduction turns out to have been wrong, "whether by reason of the Contractor being held to be an employee of AQA or otherwise."

Clause 10 deals with pensions, and it is the reason this page can be more definite than our tutoring guide:

"10.1 From the commencement date of this contract, where appropriate AQA will comply with its obligations under the pensions auto enrolment regulations. 10.2 As required under these regulations AQA will make the appropriate deductions from fees which will be paid over as pension contributions to the pension scheme. Further details of the pension scheme are available from autoenrolment@aqa.org.uk."

Clause 10.3 adds, for completeness, that no contracting-out certificate under the Pension Schemes Act 1993 is in force in respect of the contract. Clause 20, "Legal status", closes the loop: "Nothing in this Contract shall be deemed to constitute a partnership or any employment relationship between the parties."

What HMRC's own manuals say

Exam board contracts are one party's characterisation of a relationship, and HMRC is not bound by what a contract calls something. So the useful check is whether HMRC's own published guidance agrees — and on this narrow point it does, explicitly, in a manual page written about examiners specifically.

ESM4150 in HMRC's Employment Status Manual addresses examiners, moderators and invigilators. It confirms that where the statutory conditions are met, such people "will remain as self-employed earners for NICs purposes and will be entitled to pay voluntary Class 2 NICs (and must also continue paying special Class 4 NICs, where applicable)." The authority it cites is Schedule 1, Part II, Column (A), paragraph 6 of the Social Security (Categorisation of Earners) Regulations 1978 (SI 1978/1689). ESM4150 also notes an important exception: the treatment does not apply where the individual provides their services through an agency to an end client.

The underlying regulation is worth quoting because its scope is wider than most summaries suggest. Part II of Schedule 1 lists employments that are disregarded as employed earner's employments, and paragraph 6 covers:

"Employment … by any person responsible for the conduct or administration of any examination leading to any certificate, diploma, degree or professional qualification — (a) as an examiner, moderator or invigilator or in any similar capacity; or (b) in which the person employed is engaged to set questions or tests for any such examination, under a contract where the whole of the work to be performed is to be performed in less than twelve months."

Three features of that drafting are worth pulling out, because they are routinely misread.

• The limbs are alternatives, not cumulative. You qualify under (a) as an examiner, moderator or invigilator or in any similar capacity; or under (b) as a question setter. You do not need to do both.
• Invigilators are expressly named. The regulation covers invigilation in the same breath as examining — but only where the engagement is by the body responsible for the conduct or administration of the examination. A school-employed invigilator on a casual contract is employed by the school, not by the awarding body, and is an ordinary employed earner paying Class 1. Our invigilator pay guide covers that side.
• The twelve-month condition is the real test. An engagement whose work all falls inside a single exam series comfortably meets it. A rolling year-round contract with an awarding body might not, and a senior associate on a continuous multi-year appointment should not simply assume this treatment applies to them.

The second HMRC page, PAYE70245, sits in the PAYE Manual and describes how the income tax side was historically administered. Under the old Examination Schemes, forms P45, P46 and P60 were not issued; no tax was deducted from an examiner who completed a declaration of non-liability on form P524; basic rate tax was deducted from all payments where no such declaration was made; a certificate of tax on form P525 was provided to examiners who had been taxed; coding allowances and code instructions did not apply; and — consistent with ESM4150 — Class 1 National Insurance was not due.

The 2014 change that explains everything

Here is the detail that ties the whole picture together, and that almost nothing written about examiner tax mentions. PAYE70245 carries an explicit note:

"Note: This guidance relates to the operation of Examination Schemes for tax years up to and including 2013 to 2014. From 2014 to 2015 onwards these schemes will operate under standard PAYE arrangements."

Now look again at AQA's clause 7.1, which begins: "From 6 April 2014 the Contractor shall either provide a P45 or complete a contractor starter check sheet at the commencement of the contract."

6 April 2014 is the first day of the 2014/15 tax year. The two documents are describing the same change from opposite sides. HMRC withdrew the bespoke Examination Scheme with its P524 declarations and P525 certificates, and required examination bodies to run their examiner payments through ordinary PAYE machinery instead. AQA's contract was updated in the same year — hence the August 2014 version we are quoting — to require the P45 or starter checklist that standard PAYE needs in order to apply a tax code.

It also explains why the National Insurance position did not change in 2014 and never will while the 1978 categorisation regulations stand. PAYE governs income tax collection; the categorisation regulations govern NI class. Moving the income tax collection onto standard PAYE rails did nothing to the NI disregard. That is the whole of the mystery.

National Insurance: the genuinely unusual bit

For most teachers, the National Insurance answer on examining income is "nothing" — but it is worth understanding why, because the reasoning differs from the tutoring answer and it has one real consequence.

The one real consequence is the mirror image of the convenience. Because no NI is paid on examining income and the fee is modest, examining builds no additional State Pension entitlement and no additional qualifying years beyond what your teaching employment already gives you. Someone whose only income in a particular year was examining — a career break, a retirement year, a period out of the classroom — should look carefully at voluntary Class 2, because ESM4150 confirms the entitlement exists and it is the cheapest way to protect a qualifying year.

Do you still need Self Assessment?

This is the question that generates the most confident wrong answers, including from examiners themselves on public forums, where "it's taxed at source so there's nothing to do" is repeated regularly. The contract you signed says otherwise, and so does the law.

The trigger is the trading allowance threshold, and it is measured on gross self-employment income across everything you do, not on profit and not per activity. GOV.UK's guidance on tax-free allowances on property and trading income is written around "annual gross income" and is clear that income above £1,000 means registering for Self Assessment.

The trading allowance problem nobody warns you about

Here is where examining income diverges most sharply from tutoring income, and where the standard advice written for side hustles simply does not fit.

That asymmetry is the practical heart of this page. The trading allowance is written as an exemption from a tax charge, and it does exempt the income — but it cannot reach backwards through a PAYE deduction that has already happened. The tax comes off at source regardless, because the board applies a tax code and has no way of knowing whether you have used your allowance elsewhere.

GOV.UK's own guidance anticipates this situation and points at the route out. It directs you to contact HMRC's Income Tax helpline if you are not in Self Assessment and have already paid tax through your PAYE tax code on income from providing casual services, "as you may be due a refund of the tax paid".

• If your total gross side income is over £1,000, register for Self Assessment, declare the gross examining fee, claim either the trading allowance or actual expenses, and enter the tax already deducted. The return reconciles everything and produces a single figure to pay or reclaim.
• If your total gross side income is £1,000 or less and tax was deducted, you are not required to register — but you are likely owed a refund. Contact HMRC's Income Tax helpline rather than filing a return you do not need. Have the gross fee, the tax deducted, and any payment documentation from the board to hand.
• If you were already in Self Assessment for another reason — a substantial tutoring practice, rental income, the high income child benefit charge — declare the examining income on the same return and take the credit for tax deducted there. There is no separate process.
• Keep every remittance advice or fee statement from the board. It is your evidence of both the gross fee and the tax deducted, and the boards do not issue a P60 for this income in the way an employer would.

Reconciling the tax the board already took

Whether you end up owing more or reclaiming depends almost entirely on which tax code the board applied and what your overall position is. The mechanics are worth understanding because a second income is exactly the situation PAYE handles worst.

Two further reconciliation points that catch teachers out.

Student loan repayments are not collected by the board. The examining fee has income tax deducted but no student loan deduction. Once you file a Self Assessment return, HMRC recalculates your repayment on your total income for the year, applies 9% above your plan threshold — or 6% for a Postgraduate Loan — and credits what your school already deducted through payroll. Because a full-time teaching salary is above every plan threshold, essentially all of your examining profit attracts a further 9%. On an £800 fee that is £72 that simply was not deducted at source, and it will appear on your Self Assessment bill.

A small bill can be collected through your tax code. If you owe less than £3,000, already pay tax through PAYE, and file online by 30 December — not 31 January — HMRC will collect the balance through your PAYE tax code across the following year rather than demanding a lump sum. For examining bills, which are usually small, this is almost always the sensible route, and 30 December is the date that actually matters.

A worked example, with real numbers

A teacher on the Upper Pay Range outside London, gross pensionable salary £52,835, marks one A-level component for a gross fee of £900 plus a £60 standardisation attendance fee. They have no other side income. The board applied a BR code. They have a Plan 2 student loan.

Note what has happened. Gross side income of £960 is under £1,000, so this teacher has no obligation to register for Self Assessment at all. If they do nothing, they simply lose the £192. The route to recovering it is a call or written claim to HMRC's Income Tax helpline, quoting the gross fee and the tax deducted, rather than registering for a tax return they do not need.

Now change one fact: the same teacher also tutors, grossing £1,500 across the year.

Pensions: definitively not TPS, and here's why

This is the section where examining income gives a cleaner answer than tutoring income does, and it is worth setting out the full chain of reasoning rather than just asserting the conclusion.

What you can do instead. Self-employed profits are relevant UK earnings for personal pension purposes, so examining profit increases the amount you can contribute to a personal pension or SIPP with tax relief. For a higher rate taxpayer that is one of the more efficient uses of the money, sitting alongside rather than inside your Teachers' Pension. Our Teachers' Pension Scheme guide covers what the main scheme does and does not give you, and the annual allowance guide covers the interaction if your total income is high enough for tapering to bite.

How this differs from the tutoring answer

Because this site already publishes a detailed guide to tax on tutoring income, it is worth being explicit about where the two answers genuinely diverge rather than leaving you to spot it.

The single sentence version: tutoring is taxed the way a side business is taxed, and examining is taxed like a second job that is legally not one. If you do both, remember they share one £1,000 allowance and appear on the same return.

Expenses an examiner can actually claim

If your examining income takes you over £1,000 in combination with other trades, you get the usual annual choice: the £1,000 trading allowance, or your actual allowable expenses, never both, decided per tax year.

For most examiners the trading allowance wins comfortably, because examining is a low-cost activity — you mark on-screen from your own home using equipment you already own. But the expense route is worth checking, and the legal test is materially more generous than the one that governs your teaching salary. Employment expenses must be incurred "wholly, exclusively and necessarily in the performance of the duties", which is why HMRC refuses classroom teachers almost everything, as our teacher tax relief guide explains. Self-employment expenses need only be wholly and exclusively for the purposes of the trade, and apportionment for mixed use is permitted.

• Use of home — either HMRC's simplified flat rate based on hours worked from home each month, or a fair proportion of actual heat, light, broadband and phone. Marking 15 to 20 hours a week for a month is a genuine, evidenced use of your home for the trade.
• A share of the computer the board requires you to own. AQA's terms make suitable IT "a pre-condition of appointment" — a private PC or laptop on a currently supported Windows operating system, broadband and a printer. That is about as clear a business purpose as an expense can have, apportioned for private use.
• Printing, paper, ink and consumables used for the marking.
• Travel to standardisation meetings at HMRC's approved mileage rate, but only where the board has not already reimbursed you. AQA reimburses authorised travel and subsistence at its own rates, and you cannot claim what you have been repaid.
• Stationery, storage and secure disposal where you mark physical scripts, which the board's confidentiality clauses require you to keep secure and destroy or return.

Sources, and what we could not verify

The employment status and pension material is quoted from AQA's published Terms of appointment: Examiners/Team Leaders/Assistant Principal Examiners, Version 3, dated August 2014, hosted in AQA's public filestore — clauses 1.2, 1.3, 7.1, 8.7, 10.1 to 10.3 and 20. The National Insurance treatment is from HMRC's Employment Status Manual at ESM4150 and from Schedule 1, Part II, Column (A), paragraph 6 of the Social Security (Categorisation of Earners) Regulations 1978 (SI 1978/1689) on legislation.gov.uk. The income tax collection history is from HMRC's PAYE Manual at PAYE70245, including its note that Examination Schemes ceased after 2013/14 and moved to standard PAYE arrangements from 2014/15. The trading allowance rules and the refund route for casual services income already taxed through a tax code are from GOV.UK's guidance on tax-free allowances on property and trading income. The pension eligibility test is from Teachers' Pensions' employer factsheet "Who is eligible to join the Scheme?", and the reference to AQA in Part 4 of Schedule 1 is from the Teachers' Pensions Regulations 2014 on legislation.gov.uk.

Five things we are flagging rather than glossing over.

• The AQA terms are dated August 2014. We could not find a more recently published version in AQA's public filestore. The clauses are quoted accurately and the legal framework behind them is unchanged, but the terms binding on you are those attached to your own contract. Read them.
• We have quoted one board's contract, not four. AQA publishes its examiner terms openly; OCR, Pearson and WJEC do not publish equivalent full contract terms that we could locate. The statutory position from ESM4150 and the 1978 regulations applies to examiners generally regardless of board, but the specific contractual wording on tax deduction and pensions is AQA's.
• Forum reports that AQA changed its examiner pension deductions around 2024 are unverified. We found credible-sounding examiner discussion to that effect on public forums and no primary source confirming it. We have not treated it as fact and neither should you; ask the board directly if it matters to you.
• There is no HMRC guidance written specifically about the trading allowance interacting with examiner fees. Our analysis follows from the published trading allowance rules and GOV.UK's refund route for casual services income taxed through a tax code, but it is reasoning from general guidance to a specific case rather than a quoted answer.
• Tax codes applied to examiner fees vary and we cannot tell you yours. The BR, D0 and 0T scenarios in the reconciliation table are the common ones; what the board actually applies depends on the starter information you provided and any code HMRC has issued. Check your remittance advice against the gross fee.

Rates used are the published 2026/27 figures for England, Wales and Northern Ireland: income tax thresholds of £12,570 and £50,270, Class 4 at 6% and 2%, the Class 2 small profits threshold of £7,105 with voluntary contributions at £3.65 a week, and TPS member contribution tiers in force from 1 April 2026. Scottish taxpayers should substitute Scottish income tax rates and bands; National Insurance and the trading allowance are UK-wide. Worked figures are rounded to the nearest pound and illustrate the method rather than constituting a calculation for anyone in particular.