Published 2026-07-13 · Contractor Mortgage Guide

First-time contractor mortgages: buying in your first year of contracting

Quick answer: The biggest hurdle for a first-year contractor isn't proving your day rate — it's clearing the contract-history requirement most lenders build into their contractor policy. A large share of the panel wants around 12 months of contracting behind you before they'll annualise your income at all. That narrows the field for someone in their first year, but it doesn't close it: a few lenders have genuine flexibility for shorter histories, and understanding which ones — and why — is most of the battle.

Why history matters more than the rate itself

A day rate is easy for a lender to verify: it's on the contract, and the payslip or invoice confirms it's being paid. What's harder to verify is whether that rate is sustainable — whether you're likely to keep earning it once the current contract ends. Lenders manage that uncertainty with a minimum history requirement: enough months of contracting behind you to show a pattern, rather than a single data point.

That's why two contractors on identical day rates can get very different answers from the same lender if one has three months' history and the other has three years. It's also why "I've just gone contracting" is, for most of the panel, a materially different application from "I've been contracting a year or more" — even before either applicant's actual earning power comes into it.

The 12-month benchmark — and who sits where

Twelve months' contracting history is the figure that shows up most often across the panel's published criteria, though the detail behind it varies:

• Metro Bank requires 12 months' history in the same industry, alongside at least four weeks left on the current contract.
• Skipton requires 12 months' history and two years' experience in the relevant field or industry — the more demanding version of the 12-month rule, since it adds a broader experience test on top of the history gate.
• Coventry Building Society wants either six months left on the current contract, or 24 months in the same profession — so a first-year contractor without much left on their current contract, and without two years' background in the field, may not clear either route.

For a genuine first-year contractor, that's three lenders where the published history requirement is a real obstacle rather than a formality.

Where the flexibility actually is

It isn't universal, though — a few lenders are confirmed to work differently:

• Kensington is confirmed to consider applicants with under 12 months' contracting history where there's an established CV to support the application — for example a track record in the same field as an employee before going contracting. It's not a guarantee, and "established CV" is a judgement call rather than a fixed rule, but it's a genuinely more open door than the 12-month gates above.
• Halifax's general contractor policy leans on your current contract and latest payslip rather than a fixed minimum-history gate, which in practice gives it more flexibility for newer contractors than lenders with an explicit 12-month rule — though Halifax does apply more favourable treatment above certain thresholds (broadly, day rate, income level, or sector), which are separate considerations from history itself. Check the day-rate mortgages explained guide for how that annualisation generally works.
• NatWest's high-income day-rate tier — the one that annualises day-rate income rather than treating you as standard PAYE — needs six months completed of a 12-month contract, and only applies above roughly £75,000 a year. That's a partial door: not a full 12 months, but not available to a contractor in their first few weeks either, and it's specifically an income-tier route rather than NatWest's general policy.

None of this is exhaustive — several other lenders on the panel don't publish a clear minimum-history figure at all, which in practice usually means a case-by-case underwriting decision rather than an automatic yes. Our lender criteria tables carry the confirmed detail lender by lender, including where history requirements are and aren't published.

The PAYE-to-contractor transition helps more than you'd think

If you've moved into contracting from an employed role in the same field — same industry, similar work, just a different engagement structure — that transition is itself a form of evidence, even where it isn't formally scored by every lender's policy. It's the logic behind Kensington's "established CV" flexibility above, and it's also built explicitly into at least one route on the panel:

• Barclays' ex-employee route is designed for exactly this situation, but it has its own gate: it requires three years' prior employment with the same employer/client you're now contracting for — not just prior experience in a similar role elsewhere. That's a specific, confirmed requirement — so it's most useful to someone who converted from staff to contractor at the same organisation, rather than someone who moved to contracting via a different client.

If this describes your situation, it's worth having your previous employment history — job titles, dates, references — ready to present alongside your new contract, since it's the strongest evidence a first-year contractor can usually offer.

What to do practically in your first year

• Work out where you sit against the 12-month gates before you apply. If you're inside your first year, check whether your target lender is one of the ones with a hard history requirement (Metro, Skipton, Coventry above) or one with more flexibility (Kensington, Halifax, and — above £75k with six months completed — NatWest).
• Keep your current contract and previous employment paperwork organised. For lenders with flexibility, the strength of your CV and employment history is doing real work in place of a long contracting track record.
• Understand gaps, not just length. History requirements are usually about continuity as well as duration — our contract history and gaps guide covers how lenders generally treat breaks between contracts, which matters if your first year hasn't been one continuous engagement.
• Get a feel for the numbers before you commit to a lender search. The day-rate calculator applies the general annualisation method so you can see roughly what different weeks-per-year assumptions would produce — useful context, though it doesn't replace confirming which lenders will actually accept your specific history. The affordability check can then give a general sense of borrowing capacity once you have an income figure to work with.

Contract-history requirements verified against published intermediary criteria as of 13 July 2026: Metro (12 months), Skipton (12 months + 2 years' experience), Coventry Building Society (6 months remaining or 24 months same profession), Kensington (flexible below 12 months with established CV), NatWest (6 months completed of a 12-month contract, income £75k+ tier), and Barclays' ex-employee route (3 years' prior employment with the same employer/client you're now contracting for). Criteria change frequently and history requirements are applied with underwriter discretion in many cases — confirm the current position with the lender or a whole-of-market broker. Information, not advice; this article doesn't constitute a recommendation to use any particular lender.