16 years ago, a freelance photographer called Matt Dowling spent his last £300 on a lawyer, hoping to recover £11,000 that was owed to him from an unpaid invoice. This final attempt failed, leaving Matt broke, frustrated and out of ideas. But the story made the national press and freelancers reached out with similar tales.
Fast-forward to the present day and Dowling has become a leading voice in the creative freelance sector as the founder (and head) of the Freelancer Club, a highly successful online community with over 65,000 members. Set up to empower freelancers and end exploitative unpaid work, the Freelancer Club provides a platform for education, support, and job opportunities for its members in the UK, Ireland, and the US.
Today, almost 1 in 20 people in the UK freelance full-time for a living (up to 1 in 5 in Greater London), according to a recent report and survey from Archimedia, while there are 7.4 million people freelancing in the UK, either part or full time. The report also found that freelancers contribute a huge £270bn to the UK economy each year and that 1 in 4 people in the UK would like to make an income through freelance in the future. An estimated 15% of freelancers are working mothers.
For this interview, Dowling sat down with 1st Formations to discuss why freelance work is booming and what that means for companies.
Q: Where is freelancing, culturally and socially, in the UK?
A: Freelance is growing at an exponential rate, with the latest stats showing that the number of 16 to 24 year olds freelancing is at an all-time high, while more university students are freelancing than ever before.
There’s also a statistic that, by 2027, there will be more freelancers than employees in the US (the caveat being that in the US, they define a freelancer as anybody who has a side hustle, including those who also have a full-time job). But that doesn’t diminish the popularity of its growth.
And yet, there still exists a high level of stigma and misconception around freelancing, such as the idea that it is a stop-gap or a jumping-off point, when in fact, it’s very much its own viable career path that lots of people are choosing.
Q: Why is freelancing so popular with the younger generations?
A: It’s a perfect storm of several things. Many people reflected on what’s important to them during the pandemic, and this has coincided with Gen Z values that are synonymous with freelancing. Values like purpose, freedom and flexibility.
On top of this, the cost of living has meant that many people have had to get a second source of income, sometimes a third, to try and cover their bills and save money. As such, freelancing offers a lucrative opportunity for people with the right skillset.
If you’re a web developer at university and manage to fit in a freelance gig around that, then you’re very likely to earn lots more than working minimum wage at the local cafe. More and more young people recognise this, while others are doing it unconsciously, so to speak – there’s a lot of freelancing being done in a casual format, since many young people do not even think of themselves as freelancers.
For example, someone selling secondhand clothes or undertaking another ‘side hustle’ (as many refer to it); these people would easily fall under the category of freelance. However, many in those jobs do not formalise it as such. They probably don’t have a website. They probably don’t think about themselves as a business, but rather see it as a way to make some extra cash on the side.
Platforms like Vinted, an app that helps users to sell secondhand clothes, have invested huge amounts of capital into their advertising campaigns aimed at the Gen Z and Millennial demographics. This speaks volumes about those generations, who are also very tech-savvy. We’re also seeing a lot more products and services from companies looking to support freelancers, such as invoicing apps and other admin tools, that make it easier for freelancers to run their business
Q: Are you seeing more freelancers set up their own companies?
A: We don’t have hard data on that. I know it’s very important for the universities to get their students forming companies, because they have KPIs around this.
From our side, it’s more a case of legality. We want to ensure that if somebody feels ready to form a company, they have all of the information they need to set up. But we would never pressure anybody to do that. I think for us it’s more about: are you legally required to set up a company (i.e. have you generated a certain amount of income within a financial year wherein you might have to form a business). But there’s also the fact that many employers prefer to hire freelancers who are more formalised and who have their own company.
Q: Are companies hiring freelancers more regularly?
A: We’re seeing a very significant transition across companies in general, and how they engage with the workforce. The way we work has transformed over the past four years since the pandemic, shifting towards a more fluid working model that is more amenable to freelance labour.
Meanwhile, for an early stage startup, using freelancers is a far safer model than dumping a huge amount of money into a group of full-time employees. We’ve also seen over the past few years that big companies are becoming more comfortable hiring freelancers. The logic here is: If my staff works efficiently remotely, why can’t we do the same with a freelancer?
Q: Which sectors are really thriving for freelance work? Or the opposite?
A: We’re seeing it pretty much across the board. Tech, as you could imagine, is very comfortable in that space, and it’s seen an uptick since the pandemic. What I’m hearing, anecdotally, is that the more traditional sectors, such as law and finance, are still far less likely to engage freelancers, though it may just be that the freelance model does not readily suit those sectors.
Q: Is it counterintuitive that freelancers are growing in number during economic insecurity in the UK, and globally?
A: Perhaps, but if you think about the values of Gen Z that we discussed earlier, money is not on that list, or high on that list. Financial realities might bite in the future, so we might see a very different landscape in the years to come, when Gen Z people start struggling to afford to start a family. But for now, many are saying: I don’t want to spend my life doing something I hate just to chase the dollar.
Q: What does AI mean for freelance?
A: We’re definitely seeing AI’s significant impact on certain sectors. ChatGPT, for instance, has had a big impact on freelancers who generate text or copy-based work. This hits journalists, but more so translators and people writing evergreen content.
AI still can’t go out yet and get the news. I think that in the next few months, once we start to see the advent of Sora from OpenAI, there may be a reckoning for photographers, videographers, and image creators.
On the other hand, AI is expediting many administrative tasks that steal too much time from freelancers and are all non-billable hours. So that’s been an amazing evolution, and the same goes for companies.
Q: What is your parting nugget of advice and wisdom for budding freelancers?
A: Think like a business and see yourself as the boss of that business, as a company of one. I feel that too many folks go into freelancing so casually and then get knocked about and bullied. They end up working for free, or they undercharge, because they don’t value their incredible skills. Start seeing yourself as the boss, and your confidence will skyrocket.
