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New data reveals best paid locations for freelancers

East Anglia earns the most, daily rates growing fastest in the North East and Wales, while the East Midlands lags behind

The North East has emerged as a growth hotspot for one-person companies, with freelancers charging almost 50% more than in 2013, finds new research* from Crunch Accounting.

The research findings are based on the daily charge out rates of more than 4,700 one-person companies across the UK since 2013.

Other fast growing regions include Wales and the South West, where daily rates have increased by 31% and 28% respectively.

The area where one-man companies are charging the most is East Anglia, with workers billing an average of £318 per day.

Meanwhile the worst location to go it alone in business is the North West, where the one-person companies are charging a daily average of £260, £30 less than the national average. Freelancers in the East Midlands are also suffering with fees dropping by 1.3% since 2013.

London’s one-person businesses have experienced relatively little change with a small 6% increase in fees, despite the rapid rise in business and living costs for the capital.

Darren Fell, CEO of Crunch said: “We sourced this data to better understand how incomes are changing amongst the country’s freelance workforce, and with the data drawing on more than 1.8 million billed freelance days, this provides a definitive rates guide for the one man band businesses.

“It’s great to see business confidence is on the rise amongst the self-employed, a group that historically undervalues their services.

“These figures confirm what we have long understood here at Crunch, that the self-employed are leading the country’s economic recovery and it’s high time they received greater political support and recognition.”

There are approximately 4.6 million self-employed workers in the UK, the highest level since Office of National Statistics records began almost 40 years ago.

See how your region compares in the new Crunch interactive visualisation here

* The research compiled by Crunch Accounting includes data from 4,700 self-employed workers across the UK, including over 1.8 million billed days since the beginning of 2013. This includes self-employed workers from a wide range of industries, such as web designers, freelance photographers, marketers and designers.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Crunch Accounting .