UK freelancing

[STRAT]

just a question to all those (particulaly in the UK) who make a living from freelancing -

 

 

How do you find it?

 

I've freelanced on and off for 10 years or so, but always in conjunction with my regular job. i only freelance to make extra pocket money.

 

I was recently thinking of jacking in my regular job (which isn't badly paid) and going it alone full time, but i had fairly negative feedback and views about it from peeps i know who do it.

 

The trouble is, as always, quality of life. Now, if i went full time free lancing i'd like to make atleast a minimum of £35-40K (thats after tax too). That means grossing an anual of somewhere around the 50K mark, which breaks down to about £4000 per month.

 

£4000 per month doesnt sound that bad - call it 2 jobs per month. maybe a week or 2 weeks per month? thats the month nicely filled and paid for.

 

but hey, that's maybe in an ideal world. first off finding 2 jobs per month is a pain in the butt, then grossing £4K or over is another matter completely.

 

2 jobs per month sounds great, but i'm sure it's like busses - you get months where you're bogged down, then you get months on end where you get next to no work in. and when ur not actually working you must be out there networking and marketing.

And when the jobs do come in ur working all ours.

 

For those who are successfull 1 man bands, how do you find it?

Do you make just enough to pay the bills, or are you reletively comfortably off?

Do you lay awake at night worrying where your next month's mortgage/rent is comming from?

Is your free time and quality of life pretty good, and ur not working like a bast**d to make end's meat?

Do you wish you had the security of a full time employment job instead at times?

 

 

I've decided against doing it full time because my current job isn't that badly paid, i dont have to worry about where work is comming from, i finish every day at 5.30pm and my weekends are free, the tax man isn't a concern etc etc.

 

also, the more you earn the higher a tax bracket you go into, which, in the UK, is quite high, so you must earn allot more just to offset that! and i dont have a good 6 months worth of pay in my bank to help me start off.

 

besides, i think a few extra hours over time a month for a freelance job here and there, in conjunction with my current job, is a good combination. means i can potentially double my income pretty easily without too much stress, pick and choose who and when i work for and have all my office facilities at my disposal.

 

what do you think guys from your point of view?

[Ricardo Eloy]

That's definetly a two-edged knife. I used to work for companies and was exactly in the same position you are right now: not badly paid, not concerned about getting clients, etc... The problem was that since our economy wasn't (and I still have my doubts even today) reliable, it was easy to feel in jeopardy. I mean, I remember that I was working for one of the largest arch companies in Brasil and, after 9/11 they lost like 5 major contracts with american companies. Aftermath: they cut off half their personnel (archvis included). After that, I decided I'd work as a freelancer and guess what? I'm making double the money. Of course, as you said, there are months and months, and sometimes it's hard to tell if you'll make it thru the week. So far, it's worth the risk.

[STRAT]

After that, I decided I'd work as a freelancer and guess what? I'm making double the money. Of course, as you said, there are months and months, and sometimes it's hard to tell if you'll make it thru the week. So far, it's worth the risk.

 

yeah, it's a case of is it worth it.

 

as i say, unless i was realistically making around or over £40K (after tax) i dont think i'd want all the stress and grief involved.

[Matt Sugden]

Hi Strat, basically I jumped from the computer games industry during a wave of voluntary redundancies as it was/is becoming a very unstable place to earn a living, companies in the UK go pop left right and centre, when you least expect it, and it just seems to be happening all the time.

 

For me it was a gamble to leave this industry, and effectively start a new career, when I could have just found another well paid job in games, BUT, to me the gamble has paid off. Freelancing I have found is very turbulent, as you described, one minute mentally busy, then quiet periods, working nights and weekends to hit deadlines, then when I'm not working I'm thinking of ways to grow my business or dealing with accountants/marketing blah blah blah. Thats the negative side.

 

On the positive side, I get great comments about my product daily, right from the horses mouth, so to speak, I can't remember ever getting such direct feedback in games, and certainly to such a great extent, this sort of things is a great motivator. I get to set my own terms and working hours, if a client is not my type of person then I won't bother with them (this hasn't happened yet I'm pleased to say). If works not coming in it's down to me, no one else, and the bottom line is, when I'm busy the money is good and when it's quiet, well it's nice to put your feet up every now and again.

 

I think being honest, in your shoes with a well paid secure job, that you enjoy, what reason could you have for wanting to deal with the negative side of freelancing (unless your a closet entrepeneur of course)?

[Iain Denby]

I undestand your train of thought. You produce a visual for your company within a week, and you get paid maybe £400 - £600 for your time and expertise. You do the same job directly to your company's client on a freelance basis, and you get £1500 - £3000. If you work from home, your overheads are neglegable, so you pocket about 95%. You are making your self rich rather than your boss.

 

There is nothing to stop you (after leaving) contacting your company's clients directly, AND offering your services back to your present employer-you know them and how they work and vice versa.

 

I've been freelancing for 20 years, but have to admit I had nothing to loose, as I was made redundant when the compny I worked for went bust. But I have to say that these days I have a good client base, but I still feel insecure if even if I have 2 days without any work. The feeling never leaves you no matter how well you're doing.

 

BUT, you know, no-one is in control of their own destiny and anything could happen at any time. These days, being employed doesn't relly make your situation more secure than a freelancer, so we all have to accept this insecure feeling from time to time.

[IC]

I'd be very interested in the findings here too.

I'd love to do it but I'm too nervous what with mortgage, kids etc. A guaranteed monthly salary and a regular good night's sleep is just too attractive. I also like being able to do NOTHING at the weekend.

 

£40k after tax doesn't sound impossible but I don't know how realistic it is taking slow periods into account (Dibbers?).

My worry would be where all the people go when you're too busy to take on their work. Would they come back to you knowing you don't have the resources to always be available? (ie a one man outfit)

[Mat@MDI-Digital]

There is nothing to stop you (after leaving) contacting your company's clients directly, AND offering your services back to your present employer-you know them and how they work and vice versa

 

maybe not...I signed a contract at my last place of work saying I could not contact with my employers clients for 6 months (may have been a year), they could ofcourse contact me but i could not contact them... by doing so I could be taken to court for damages.

personlay, i dont make anywhere near 40k after tax doing architecture work, 99% of the work that I do is for property developers with quite tight budgets.

[JamesTaylor]

i'm no lawyer but....

 

i have contacts in the electrical trade who employe reps to sell their products, i have previously been told that these clauses of not contacting clients after you leave, aren't worth much legally, as in effect, and more so if your going freelance, the clause is stopping you being able to make a living. this is either illegal in itself or frowned upon by the legal system.

 

As such my contact retracted the clause from his contracts as he felt it couldn't be enforced.

[Mat@MDI-Digital]

Actualy iv heard the same thing. I suppose, if you have signed somthing like this its upto you, maybe a little bit of a gamble, but maybe worth it.

[Iain Denby]

£40k after tax doesn't sound impossible but I don't know how realistic it is taking slow periods into account (Dibbers?).

My worry would be where all the people go when you're too busy to take on their work. Would they come back to you knowing you don't have the resources to always be available? (ie a one man outfit)

 

Working on Strat's figures, you could do 1 job (say 5 working days) regularly each month to be no worse off than your present situation. That leaves you a lot of time to contact new clients. I do have quiet times sometimes (fortunately for me , not too many) and I should enjoy the time (as I might be snowed under next month) but I can't. I start chasing work.

 

Where do they go? Well, they go else where, but you hope it's to someone who's service is inferior to yours. If they do, they will probably come back to you in the future. But if you're starting out, you would need to go out of yopur way to try and do it, even if that means working your weekend. It's a different mentality guys - if it has to be done, it has to be done. At least the work would not be in vien.

[Iain Denby]

i'm no lawyer but....

i have contacts in the electrical trade who employe reps to sell their products, i have previously been told that these clauses of not contacting clients after you leave, aren't worth much legally, as in effect, and more so if your going freelance, the clause is stopping you being able to make a living. this is either illegal in itself or frowned upon by the legal system.

As such my contact retracted the clause from his contracts as he felt it couldn't be enforced.

 

Never heard of this clause in our profession. I wouldn't have sign something like that.

[Iain Denby]

Would they come back to you knowing you don't have the resources to always be available? (ie a one man outfit)

 

I can work in your favour sometimes. 'This guy must be good, he's very busy. We're going to have to get in quick with this guy in the future.'

 

It can increase your value.

[STRAT]

cheers for the insights guys.

 

always a difficult one. if i were established i might see it completely different from either an employee or a newly started guy, each who is eaqually good in the trade.

 

yup, why should i earn a couple of hudred bucks from my boss when doing the same job for the same client direct would earn me 4 or 5 times as much maybe?

 

and yes, if i could do 1 job per month, say a single weeks work, and charge a reasonable £2.5-3K for it i would more or less equal my currect full time wage.

 

1 job per month. 1 week's work a month. only 2-3K from it? sounds easy dont it?

 

and of course, dont under do it - maybe get in 2 jobs and work for 1/2 a month, and get double the money. you'd still have 2 weeks a month off.

 

if only it were that easy. or is it? as Iain and myself said earlier, stable job, easy money (regular), all time to urself outside normal working ours, work m8's and company, perks, etc etc. but then, couldn't i be earning a heck of a lot more doing it different?

 

i realise the internet opens the world to you, but your location still has a big bearing on your work i'm sure. how much work from the web compaired to locally will a free lancer do? i suspect the figures are highly stacked in the 'face to face' type of contract.

 

Wad - i personally dissagree about the archi bubble bursting (in my part of town anyway) in any near future.

keep going fellers.

[STRAT]

and yes, if i could do 1 job per month, say a single weeks work, and charge a reasonable £2.5-3K for it i would more or less equal my currect full time wage.

 

1 job per month. 1 week's work a month. only 2-3K from it? sounds easy dont it?

 

i'm thinking more and more this way maybe. im in a nice situation where i rarely get called upon to do over times in my normal job. so yes, perhaps doing a private job like i mentioned is the ticket. -

 

busting a gut ilate into the evenings/early morning hours, for a week or so, for a couple of grand, for 1 week a month to allow you to double your wages (or more)?

 

sounds heavey work together with the regular day job, but possibly worth the time and effort for the comebacks.

 

i've tried this method out 2ice so far. knackers you out for a week, but hey, feels good when a juicy cheque comes rolling in.

 

i'mma still thinking

[Lhanh29]

So i'm don't know how to say.So in my opinion your life is yours.You can do everything you want.

As me i have contracted with an employer for 2 years.After that i could not continue my working at my office.Because It is terible.I can not increase my skill, i were under the force of space of working.

I think a bout it too much,and finaly i released and became a freelancer up to now.

My english isn't good but i would like to say my thinkings.And you know that in Viet Nam a freelancer wants to earn money with his job which isn't easy very much.

[Ernest Burden III]

Mr. MyJobIsGreat can't resist looking over the fence?

 

For those who are successfull 1 man bands, how do you find it?

Do you make just enough to pay the bills, or are you reletively comfortably off?

Do you lay awake at night worrying where your next month's mortgage/rent is comming from?

Is your free time and quality of life pretty good, and ur not working like a bast**d to make end's meat?

Do you wish you had the security of a full time employment job instead at times?

 

The answer to all of those Qs is the same--depends on the month, or the year, in other words, YES.

 

Maybe Iian has a better ability than some to manage his work (maybe not) but just about all renderers I know have scary down time when we all wonder if we will ever have two cents to rub together ever again. Other times you are looking at making so damned much money you wouldn't need to work again for months--if you can just stay awake around the clock for a week.

 

Overall, I do not find the good times to be an adequate offset for the hard times. Overall, its not a positive. And I could be considered a suscessful freelancer over the last 20 years. My wife has said to me, recently, "whatever they're paying you, it isn't worth it". That's hard to take, but with the hours I often work and the odd income holes that happen sometimes I have no choice but stand there and take it. She's put up with a lot because of my career choice, she has a right to put me in my place.

 

Now, look at things this way--if you go freelance you will undoubtedly have to put in stupid-long hours sometimes. There just isn't any way around it. Projects are getting bigger--because they can--but deadlines aren't getting longer. My client's don't complain about my cost or quality, they complagn about my delivery time. Working alone is becoming increasingly less viable. Which suggests that you can have the best of both worlds by keeping your job and doing freelance on the side, as you're doing now. One way to make this work is to spend some of your time sub-contracting to other fulltimers--like, oh, me for example--who already have sold projects and just need help meeting their deadlines. You get a good hourly rate and don't have to deal with getting that work or relating to the end client. Doing so doesn not prevent you from gewtting your own freelance projects. But doing it yourself means you alone are on the hook, even when things go wrong or long.

 

As you know, if you are a full-time freelancer you have the opportunity to bring in a lot of money--or none at all. If you want to go that route you can count on my help and advice.

 

Now--to all of you that cling to the myth of 'being your own boss' -- it sucks. Sure I'm the boss, but my employee is deeply flawed, unrealistic and easily distracted, a frustrated perfectionist, a pain-in-the-ass to manage. And not much to talk to during a long workday. I should fire the bum. Only be your own boss if you enjoy managing projects, buying supplies, doing tax forms and writing proposals and invoices, making collection calls, explaining to angry customers why they will not be seeing what they expected to see today, etc. If what you want to spend your time doing is making models and renderings, a job is a good way to do that, and just that. After all the 'boss' stuff I have to do all day, it's hard to find the time to make art.

[lambros]

well, it depends on the kind of experience one has during his career. I worked as an employee for 2 years, but could not stand the office attitude. It is really difficult to be one's boss, all the above are correct: you have to do marketing, accounting, go to the banks, work odd hours, yep it surely sucks in a kind of way. But on the other hand, I really appreciate waking up whenever I want (usually a client calls in:mad: ) do my shopping in the morning, even have coffee at the plaza in the sun (that's why I love Greece) and get back to do the hard work. Of course, I have done a 3-4 month crash (with no weekends-no holidays) from 10am to 3am (with just two lunch breaks), and that really sucked. But then I got paid. In the long run though, I bet that it will bring me down. So, if you consider freelancing, go for it, and think about working together with some other freelancer in the near future. That should do the trick:cool:

[IC]

Sure I'm the boss, but my employee is deeply flawed, unrealistic and easily distracted, a frustrated perfectionist, a pain-in-the-ass to manage. And not much to talk to during a long workday. I should fire the bum. Only be your own boss if you enjoy managing projects, buying supplies, doing tax forms and writing proposals and invoices, making collection calls, explaining to angry customers why they will not be seeing what they expected to see today, etc. If what you want to spend your time doing is making models and renderings, a job is a good way to do that, and just that. After all the 'boss' stuff I have to do all day, it's hard to find the time to make art.

 

Lol

That's another problem. Discipline when no-one is supervising!

 

Good point Ernest.

[STRAT]

EBIII - sack yourself, you sound a right drag on your firm

 

IC - so true. it's way to easy to get up late and spend the rest of the day watching Spong Bob square pants on the tv.

 

lambros - must admit i've spent most of my working career fully employed so far. did a small stint doing freelance graphic design before computers came along, and have freelanced on an off ever since, but as i say, not to earn a living but rather to earn extra disposable income for holidays and so forth.

 

and i really do like the working environment of full time employment. just frustrates me when i stop and think of the alternatives.

 

on a pluss point though -

 

in my firm (of architects) i'm the only high-end 3d guy. i earn a decent wage, but it isn't the same as my architect collegues. they're usually on (or atleast have the potential) to earn more than me by upping the arhcitectural ladder, of which isn't available to me. so yes, my m8's in work generally earn more than me (not much more, but more all the same).

 

But, it's swings and roundabouts - if my archi collegues do private work on the side what do they do? small domestic house extentions, building regulation approvals, planning approvals etc etc etc . ie, only smallish jobs and architect can realistically do on his own, earning him a few hundred bucks here and there for a week's work or so....

 

Now, if i do a private job i can (and do) easily earn a fair few grand for the same amount of time spent working overtime.

 

ups and downs see like innit?

[gfa2]

How about the retirement fund, the medical insurance, social security and all that other stuff that is easy to forget about when you have an employer paying for them? This stuff will vary from country to country, but what kind of "unforeseen" expenses have you full time freelancers come across? I'm with you STRAT, I have an office job, but do freelance on the side and hope transition fully from office to freelance, but I don't want to rush anything and forget about all the unforeseen expenses.

[STRAT]

again, very true, as it stands my employer contributes most significantly to my pension and my health insurance.

 

and having your own office Christmas party with just you turning up doesn't sound too jolly.

[lambros]

yes, but again, how many chances do you have to do 3d work naked in just your socks?

[STRAT]

hmmm, remind me never to knock on your door for a suprise visit

[lambros]

seriously, if it is the money you are after, you are probably better off right now. What I love about freelancing though, is that in the summer I can spend two months in the island of Lefkada, Greece (with my two laptops and workstation together though!), doing work from there. I may work 2-3 weekends in a row, but I can take 10 days off whenever it is possible.

[lambros]

another advantage is that I can listen to thrash metal as loud as I can take it