All I want to say is many many thanks for providing these clarifications. I will consider my PhD stipend as something "outside" the HMRC sphere, therefore, the only stream that will be subject to taxes will be the one made of the income and the eventual bonus, benefits etc from any industrial collaboration.

Hello,

Many thanks for your answer. Your opinion is really important as tax lawyers keep saying that my case is really uncommon, struggling to help. So basically this means that I should not get obsessed with the tax offices and in filling in forms of any sort: i keep receiving my net phd stipend and, if i will obtain a parallel job, an after tax salary (So i correctly pay taxes on this income) without worrying about how much I earn from this job as it will not affect the tax free status of the phd stipend.

Do you think we have the same situation (This strong separation) for the possible benefits that could come from each income stream? I give you a dummy example: a PhD student, i think (do not take it as absolute truth), has some discount on council tax and transport costs. Then let's assume that there is also an industry contract that allow the worker to consider some benefits like claiming the cost of business trips or part of the rent if a portion of the work is systematically done from home (say once a week). Do you think that all these benefits can co-exist or the government does not allow for combining all this (as if a regulation forbids to receive a deduction on council tax (due to phd role) and claim at the same time a portion of the rent as the flat is systematically used for a x days a week as office)?

Many thanks

Hi everyone,

I am about to start a PhD in UK and, as many of you, I will earn a stipend from my university. The scholarship is issued by EPSRC. I am classifying as a full time UK/EU student under a full scholarship stipend. My PhD program allows the students to undertake projects/part time work in the industry for relatively extended periods, especially from the second here.
This option offers the opportunity of earning an additional income stream that could significantly improve the finance/living conditions of the student.

My main issue are the difficulties I am facing in understanding how, under a tax perspective, two possible sources of income are taxed in the UK. Let assume that the tax free phd stipend amounts to x £. Then we have also an industry salary (regardless the type of contract) of y £, assuming that the amount of y £ exceeds the non taxable barrier (I think is around 8k per annum here in the UK). How the taxation work in this case ? will my phd stipend of x £ remain tax free regardless how much I additionally earn from other sources, thus leaving only the non phd income stream of y £ subject to regular taxation? Or instead, will the taxation applied to the cumulative income x £ + y £.

I think that some of you may have dealt with this situation, either by undertaking industry work related to your research or by undertaking teaching/university works. I would appreciate a lot if some of you might help me on these questions that, in spite of a consistent effort, I have not been able to answer so far.