Editorial Guidelines

WhatsUK is committed to providing accurate, up-to-date financial information for UK residents. We are a YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) website - meaning the content we publish can directly affect the financial decisions of our users. We take that responsibility extremely seriously.

All content on WhatsUK - whether a calculator, a blog post, or an explanatory guide - follows the editorial standards set out on this page. These standards are not aspirational; they are requirements that every piece of content must meet before publication.

Our editorial standards are based on three core principles: accuracy (figures come from official sources and are tested before publication), transparency (we show our sources and explain our methodology), and currency (we update content whenever official rates or legislation change).

All calculators on WhatsUK are built and tested by James Hartley, founder of WhatsUK. No calculator is published without being checked and approved by James.

All blog articles and guides are written for UK readers and checked against official sources before publication. We do not publish content that has not been reviewed for accuracy against primary HMRC or GOV.UK references where rates are claimed.

Every piece of content must meet the following minimum standards before publication:

Calculation logic is covered by automated tests that run on every change. Where the publisher provides a worked example, its figures are encoded as a test fixture and the calculator must reproduce them; any discrepancy has to be resolved before the change can be published. Where no worked example exists, the test asserts the arithmetic against the rule as written. That is a weaker check, and we describe it as such rather than calling it verification.

For blog posts and articles, all statistics, rates, and figures cited must include a direct hyperlink to the official source. We do not cite statistics from financial media articles, research reports, or secondary sources without also linking to the primary data. If a primary source cannot be found for a statistic, the figure is not published.

Content is reviewed and updated whenever:

• HMRC publishes new rates at the start of each tax year (6 April)
• A Budget announcement changes rates or thresholds mid-year
• Legislation changes affect the calculation methodology
• A reader reports a figure that does not match the source named on the page
• An automated test or build-time provenance check fails

For a detailed explanation of our technical testing process, including edge case testing and automated unit tests, see our Methodology page.

Errors happen. WhatsUK is run by one person, so we do not promise a fixed turnaround; what we do promise is that every report is read, checked against the source named on the page, and answered.

Our corrections process is as follows:

1. A reported figure is checked against the source or method named on that page
2. If the report is right, the calculation or the copy is corrected and the change is covered by a test where it can be
3. The page's "last updated" date moves to the date of the correction. No other page's dates are touched
4. Numeric corrections are added to the updates log with what changed and when

Report an error through our contact page, from the "Report a correction" link at the foot of any calculator, or by emailing james@whatsuk.com. Include the page, the figures you entered and the result you expected, which is what makes a report quick to check.

WhatsUK is independently operated. James Hartley is the sole owner and editor. There are no shareholders, investors, or parent companies with editorial influence over the content we publish.

Calculator results on WhatsUK are not influenced by advertising partnerships, affiliate relationships, or financial incentives of any kind. When we display an advertisement on the site, it is clearly labelled as such and has no bearing on the calculator results, rates used, or editorial content presented alongside it.

We do not accept payment for calculator placements, favourable write-ups of financial products, or any form of sponsored content that is not clearly disclosed to readers. Our calculators are built to give accurate, unbiased results - not to promote any particular financial product or service.

If WhatsUK ever publishes content containing affiliate links (for example, links to financial products), these are clearly disclosed at the top of the relevant page. The presence of affiliate links does not influence the editorial content, calculator rates, or recommendations on that page.