Employment trends come and go with the tides sometimes, and the latest data indicates working as a contractor or freelancer has become highly in fashion.
At least, that’s what the Office for National Statistics says. A recent report from the ONS says that the number of people going self-employed is simply exploding, whether it be through an umbrella company, limited company, or some other arrangement. Total sole trader numbers have gone up to an all-time high of 4.37 million as of the latest estimate – and that’s nearly 15 per cent of the UK’s entire workforce.
Now, much of this increase was purely coincidental back in the days just after the credit crisis and resultant economic meltdown. With so much furore in the finance markets causing an untold number of jobs losses in 2008, and the worldwide economy has been on the skids for years after that. It’s only recently that things have finally gotten back to some semblance of even remotely normal, and even then the economic recovery is so tenuous at the moment most industry experts are basically holding their breath. To that end it certainly makes sense that there was a huge explosion of Brits going into self-employment over the past few years, but it looks like when originally the number of individuals transitioning to freelancing or contract work was a necessity now it seems more like a voluntary choice.
Seems to me that once it got out that the life of a contract worker is so much more flexible than a permanent employee, the ranks of interim workers swelled with people very keen to cut the strings binding them to a 9-to-5 lifestyle. Yes there’s much less stability with a contracting career since you’re responsible for sourcing your own projects but that’s the trade-off; besides, with mobile working you can easily take on several small projects and complete them at your leisure wherever you are as long as you have smart phone, tablet or laptop.
I highly doubt that the marked increase in the number of freelancers is going to drop off anytime soon, especially not with the highly-sought-after flexibility and the fact that the skills shortage is still making it hard to find permanent workers. In other words, it truly looks like working for yourself instead of someone else is going to be the norm for many years to come – at least until the economy reaches pre-recession figures once more!
