The bean counters down at the Office for National Statistics have unleashed a new torrent of facts recently, including the growing contract worker figures.
The ONS found that there was an eight per cent increase in the number of people working for themselves instead of a boss. Whether it’s as a freelancer, an umbrella company contractor, or some other sort of self-employment, there are now 4.5 million Brits working on their own according to official figures. If you have trouble counting, that’s a bloody great lot of people, and it’s indicative that more and more Brits are tired of the rat race – especially when bosses love to move their cheese.
I mean, let’s be honest here: would you rather slave, day in and day out, for one employer, hoping to one day get a pay raise? Or would you rather make your own way in the world? Sure you would have the responsibility of finding work yourself by sourcing clients, but you have the choice of whatever you would like to work on. Not only that but you don’t have to do the daily office grind unless you want to – many freelancers and contract workers do their best work from home, after all.
This is of course part of the huge draw when it comes to being self-employed, and is most likely the impetus behind the increase in the number of contract workers over the last year. With more people learning the value of spending more time at home with their families and less time fighting traffic or losing their minds for hours on public transport. This motivation is quite different when it comes to the new influx of self-employed Brits whilst the UK was caught in the throes of the credit crisis, though; many former permanent employees that had lost their positions due to the collapse of the economy found that they needed desperately to keep providing for their families. Thankfully these troubling times are now long past us, thanks to the recovery of the economy to the point where demand for workers has rocketed.
The only fly in the ointment? There’s this niggling thing of a skills shortage that’s vexing many businesses. However, this actually benefits freelancers even more as contract workers tend to be highly skilled, resulting in a good, qualified self-employed Brit to pick their favourite and most lucrative contracts. I certainly hope that things keep looking up!
