Partner Article

The rise of the freelancers – Freelancing has never been so popular

“A job for life? No Thanks!”, says professionals today as leading accountants, Easy Accountancy reveals that freelancing has never been so popular.

The claim is backed up the latest ONS statistics over the last four years that have seen 30,000 more people working for themselves (source: www.ons.gov.uk).

Women are more likely than men to take the plunge of working for themselves with an increase of 12% or 146,000 women between Oct-Dec 2011 and Oct-Dec 2013 and only a 5% increase for men or 157,000 between the same period.

The joys of working for yourself Flexibility, making your own decisions, better pay and being able to work on projects you enjoy are just some of the reasons why people are turning from paid employment to working as sole traders or limited companies.

With more clients needing skills and expertise that they don’t have internally, the demand for consultants has become greater. Add in advances in technology and more people working remotely, the integration of consultants into a business has never been easier.

The benefits are not just in lifestyle though, but can be financial too. Having different incomes generated from different clients can often better a full time employee salary, allowing freelancers to command higher rates of pay than if employed, while also having the flexibility of being able to work as little, or as much, as they like.

The benefits to clients For clients, the benefits of contractors are also immense. Not only can they gain access to a wide range of services, they only need to pay for those services as and when they need them. On top of this, freelancers don’t come with the overheads of an employee such as tax, NI, sickness leave and other benefits, making their costs easier to predict and forecast.

Heather Dore, Regional Manager at Easy Accountancy, comments: “Freelancing has become the norm for many professionals who want to be in control of their careers, time and finances. Many decide that once they have tried working for themselves they never look back.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Easy Accountancy .