Freelancing is on the rise across Europe and the U.S. and is expected to continue rising over the next few years. Consequently, freelancing is more respected and valued now than it was years back.
According to statistics from many open sources, over a third of the work force in the US are freelancers, the figure amounts up to 53 million people in the U.S. that are doing freelance work, which is 34% of the workforce, while in the U.K and Europe, the number of freelancers increased from 6.2 million to 8.9 million and comprises about 36% of the global workforce growing from 57 million in 2020 to 1.3 billion in 2022. Freelancing has become more popular than ever, with more than one-third of people pursuing it.
The lockdown as a result of the pandemic did not only force companies to switch to remote work, but it also increased the demand for freelance workers.
Moreover, people aren’t freelancing out of necessity. The majority deliberately choose the freelance lifestyle. This isn’t surprising when you consider the benefits and freedom it brings.
Anyone that has taken the step into freelancing knows that it is an incredibly rewarding career and has a ton of advantages. While it may take a lot of time and hard work to get started, becoming a successful freelancer is achievable and comes with many benefits that continue to attract increasing numbers of people to this lifestyle.
Here are the main 10 Important Benefits of Freelancing
Being in control of what jobs you pick and what work you do, having control of how you manage your workdays, your schedule, your dress code, and completing your tasks satisfactorily.
It’s up to you to make sure you keep your clients happy, keep track of budgeting, seek new clients, and negotiate rates.
You get to become an autonomous entity and have total authority over what you do and how you do it. These make you Boss over yourself
You also get to avoid things like office bad management and office politics when you work for yourself.
Being a freelancer, you can work virtually from any location in the world.
You won’t be limited to a single location such as an office building and you can take your laptop wherever you want, which means that you have more flexibility in how you work.
Since a lot of freelance work is done digitally, it means you can be fully remote with clients worldwide which has less to do with location.
You could even take your computer on vacation with you and work a few hours a day before enjoying the rest of your time doing what you want, where you want.
When you work as a freelancer, there are no limits as to how much you can earn because you aren’t dependent on a single source for your income like you are in a typical full-time salaried job. With freelancing, you can continue on-boarding prospective clients and earning money as long as you can keep up with the workload
You can get multiple streams of revenue coming in, which helps you get better control of your finances.
It also means that you can start freelancing as a side hustle before you take it on as a full-time career.
one of the good benefits of being a freelancer is that you get to pick and choose your own working hours that are best for you because not everyone will be productive within certain working hours. Setting your own hours is entirely up to you since Freelancing allows you to have flexible hours each day, picking what times work best for you.
In general, as long as the job for a client is completed by the agreed time, you have complete control over your time, when, and how you do it.
As Freelancing is becoming more popular and an option for companies/firms, being a freelancer surely, is becoming more secure than having a traditional salaried job
Rather than hiring and training in-house employees, companies and businesses can hire a freelancer for just a few hours or a set period of time and save money.
This denotes that there are always jobs available for freelancers. No matter what type of freelancing you do, your earnings depend on how hard you work, so you can virtually secure your revenue streams without risking your job or worrying about getting fired.
Being a Freelancer you can take on various projects from multiple clients and you will likely find yourself learning new things all the time since each project brings something new to the table and provides an opportunity to expand your skill set.
Freelancing provides many more opportunities for growth as you take on a wider variety of project types.
Unlike in the traditional full-time job that may not always involve continual learning and development you can enhance your skill set on your own, you can as well choose how and when you do this instead of waiting for annual corporate training. There are many online courses and opportunities out there, and you have the freedom to make time for these as you see fit.
Freelancing has come to replace the tradition of having to comply with various office rules which had no alternatives in the corporate world. Since as a freelancer, you are pretty much your own boss. You have the freedom to make your own work schedule based on your personal decision.
Being independent allows you to change direction if a particular idea is not working as expected unlike in the corporate world where there will be several meetings and approvals to be granted before a decision to switch is made. This means that you can manage your time fully with no strict obligations as long as you deliver the job on time and meet the deadlines.
Being a freelancer you are also free to choose the project you like. You don’t have to work on projects that are not interesting or important to you. To sum it up, freelancing gives you the opportunity to work with more freedom and an incomparably bigger sense of ownership.
As a freelancer, you can pick projects that require creative thought, which helps you increase your creative abilities and think differently about different situations because creativity goes a long way in helping you achieve new goals and expand your freelancing business.
However, depending on the type of freelancing you do, you can also practice creativity in pitching to clients and helping them come up with ideas.
Financial security is one of the best benefits of freelancing.
Freelancing allows you to have control over what you earn based on the number of projects you take on and what you choose to charge your clients. Rather than hoping for a salary, a bonus, or crossing your fingers for a raise, you have the control to create whatever financial security you want with your freelancing scope.
Freelancing will allow you to reward yourself appropriately without hidden criteria or meeting up with any rewarding criteria.
Freelancers are not limited geographically. Since you can collaborate with clients around the world, you can get well enough exposure and build a solid reputation for better opportunities in the future.
As a freelancer, you can learn languages to enhance your visibility and opportunity of getting more clients or connect with clients from different language nations. When working with clients from different countries, you can learn about various work cultures and styles of communication.
Everything from financial security to healthy work, life balance, freedom, etc are among the benefits freelancing brings to one’s life.
Freelancing is a great option for people who want to earn money while making sure that they are in control of their career taking full control over Freedom, Flexibility, Finance, etc.
