How to Find Companies That Allow Side Jobs

You want to start a side job, or move to a company where you can keep the one you have. The difficulty is that "side jobs allowed" tells you nothing about how far that permission actually extends. Some employers place no conditions at all; others treat working without prior approval as grounds for disciplinary action. The same three words cover an enormous range.

This article takes the perspective of someone looking for such an employer: the levels of permission, how to tell them apart from job postings and company information, which companies tend to be permissive, and how to raise the subject during hiring. For the process of starting a side job at your current employer, see How Employees Can Start a Side Job: Employment Rules, Tax and Suitable Roles.

"Side Jobs Allowed" Comes in Four Levels

The phrase on a job posting or company site can refer to completely different arrangements under the employment rules. Understanding the levels tells you what to check.

• Prohibited outright: the employment rules do not permit side jobs at all. These employers do not advertise as side-job friendly.
• Prior approval required: you apply in advance and start only once the company signs off. This is the most common arrangement, and the decisive difference from a notification system is that approval can still be refused.
• Notification only: you declare what you are doing and can proceed in principle. Restrictions apply only where the work competes with the employer or creates excessive hours. In practice this is the easiest arrangement to work under.
• No restrictions: not even a declaration is required. Found at some startups and tech companies, but not common in absolute numbers.

Most postings that say side jobs are allowed mean the second option. What you should be checking before you apply is not whether side jobs are permitted, but whether the system runs on approval or notification, and whether applications have actually been granted.

These Companies Are Easier to Research Than They Used to Be

Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare revised its model employment rules in 2018, shifting the template towards permitting side and secondary jobs in principle. Guidelines on promoting side and secondary work were issued around the same time, and subsequently revised in September 2020 and July 2022.

The July 2022 revision is the one that matters if you are searching. It states that employers should ideally publish on their own websites whether they permit side and secondary work and, where permission is conditional, what those conditions are. It is not an obligation, so many employers publish nothing. But the reverse also holds: a company that does publish is likely to have side jobs set up as a genuine scheme. That makes it a strong signal when choosing an employer.

Five Ways to Find Them

1. Search on more than one term

In keyword search, use "secondary employment" and "parallel work" alongside "side job". Employers use different vocabulary, so a single term will only surface part of the relevant openings. Companies that advertise parallel work tend to promote it actively as a scheme. For the distinctions, see What Is Parallel Work? How It Differs From a Side Job and How to Start.

2. Look for a published policy on the company site

Search the company name together with "side job" and check the careers pages and any sustainability or human capital sections. If the scheme has a name, defined eligibility and an application process, it is very likely to be operating in practice. Conversely, if the posting says side jobs are allowed but no official information exists anywhere, that becomes something to raise at interview.

3. Read employee interviews and the careers blog

More telling than the existence of a scheme is whether anyone is using it. If employee interviews, engineering blogs or individual staff posts mention side work, you know the culture allows people to be open about it. Where a policy exists but nobody has applied, you carry the burden of being the first.

4. Narrow by industry and company size

Side jobs are easiest to permit in industries that evaluate on output and where taking skills outside is not a problem. IT and web, consulting, recruitment, advertising and creative work, and startups generally have the most developed schemes. Finance, public sector, healthcare and infrastructure, where regulation and conflicts of interest are managed tightly, retain far stronger restrictions.

5. Have a recruiter confirm how it works in practice

If you are working with a recruitment agency, side jobs are the classic question that is awkward to ask yourself. Through a consultant you can establish not only whether a scheme exists but whether applications are actually approved and how far permission extends. It causes less friction than asking in an interview, and the information tends to be more accurate.

Permission Is Never Unlimited

Even at permissive employers, the following are restricted without exception. Cross these lines and you can face disciplinary action regardless of how open the policy is.

• Work that competes with your employer: working for a direct competitor, or running a service that competes with your employer's, is almost never approved. This is the most common reason for refusal.
• Taking confidential information out: using client information or internal know-how from your main job in your side work is prohibited across every industry.
• Aggregation of working hours: if your side work is also under an employment contract, the hours are aggregated with your main job for management purposes. This is why hourly, employee-style side jobs are often discouraged; under a contract-for-services arrangement no such aggregation arises. For the differences, see Contract Work vs Side Jobs: Contract Clauses and Tax Explained.
• Impact on your main job: late-night side work that visibly degrades your daytime performance is grounds for restriction on health and safety grounds.

Note that even at a permissive employer, whether you need to file a tax return is your own judgement to make. The process is set out in The Side Job Tax Return Guide: At What Point Is It Required, and How to File.

How to Raise the Subject During Hiring

There is nothing wrong with asking, but how you ask changes the impression. What you want to avoid is coming across as though the side job policy is the main reason you applied. Keep your motivation anchored in the role itself and treat the side job question as a separate check on conditions.

• Does the side job policy run on prior approval or on notification?
• Are there people currently making use of it?
• How is the scope of work that cannot be approved defined?
• Can I apply immediately after joining, or is a minimum period of service required?

The second question is the most revealing. A scheme with zero uptake is effectively unusable, whatever the documentation says. If you already have side work behind you, there is also a case for presenting it as a strength in your work history. That approach is covered in Using a Side Job as Career Change Strategy: The Case for Trying Before You Move.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. If a posting says nothing about side jobs, does that mean they are banned?

Silence and prohibition are not the same thing. Plenty of employers permit side jobs but simply have no field for it in the posting. Check the company site, and if that leaves you none the wiser, ask at interview.

Q. Are permanent roles with side job permission really increasing?

Since the national model employment rules shifted towards permission, more employers have put schemes in place. Most of them, however, run on prior approval, so it is not the case that unconditional freedom is spreading. "More employers permit it subject to conditions" is closer to the reality than "more employers permit it".

Q. Does mentioning side work in an interview count against me?

At an employer with a formal scheme, saying so is not itself a problem. What counts against you is appearing uninterested in the role. If you can explain how the skills from your side work feed back into the main job, it can even be viewed positively.

Q. My current employer bans side jobs. Is changing jobs my only option?

There are other options. Some activities fall outside the scope of the employment rules entirely, so the right starting point is reading your own company's provisions carefully. For the alternatives, see What You Can Still Do When Your Employer Bans Side Jobs: Legitimate Ways to Increase Your Income.

Summary: Check How It Operates, Not Whether It Exists

What matters when looking for a side-job-friendly employer is not whether side jobs are permitted, but whether the system runs on approval or notification, and whether anyone is actually using it. Search on several terms, verify how it operates through published policy and what employees say publicly, and finally ask about uptake at interview. Follow that order and you avoid the situation where the scheme exists but you cannot use it.

Once you have chosen an employer, see How Employees Can Start a Side Job: Employment Rules, Tax and Suitable Roles for what comes next, and 15 Recommended Side Jobs: How Beginners Can Choose Home-Based and Smartphone Work for choosing what to do.