Must-Know Freelance Statistics for 2021

Image by Monoar Rahman Rony from Pixabay

Being a freelancer means you have the freedom to work from home, make your own hours, and adjust your workload by what you can handle. If you are needing a little more convincing on making the switch, we have put together 38 freelancer tips and statistics to know in 2021.

Freelance Community Growth

2020 was a wild year for freelancers as there was a rollercoaster of freelancer policies being purchased throughout the year. From Feb-March of 2020, freelance policies dropped by 44%. They dropped by 68% from March-April in 2020. As more and more people were laid off, the freelance community recovered quickly from March-October in 2020 with freelance and consultant insurance policies doubling in purchases. From 2014-2019, full-time freelancers grew from 17% to 28%, putting freelancers making up 36% of the global workforce in 2020. From 2019-2020, the US saw an increase of 2 million freelancers, putting it at an 8% increase for the year.

Freelancer Community Demographics

Freelancing isn’t only for one age group, it is a very diverse community. Starting with Gen Z, over 50% of the workforce aged 18-22 say that they have freelanced in the past year. 36% of freelancing Gen Z workers started after the current pandemic hit. Moving up to millennials, 44% have freelanced in the past year. People aged 39-54, Gen X, are not as active in the freelance community, but 30% of the age group does do some type of freelance work. Lastly, 26% of boomers have freelanced in the past or currently freelance. In the past year, 59 million Americans performed freelance work. About 60% of freelancers are men while the other 40% are women.

Earnings Of Freelancers

Now to get into the fun part, how much money you can earn as a freelancer. While this will ultimately depend on your skillset, who your clients are, and the quality of your work, these are the averages of most freelancers. For those offering skilled services, a $28/hour average was made by freelancers. This is more than 70% of what current workers in the US economy make. 31% of freelancers are currently making $75,000 or more while freelance copywriters are making on average $81,748. Most freelancers are working an average of 43 hours a week, which isn’t too far off from normal workweeks. Over 50% of freelancers have had 5+ clients over the past 6 months.

Freelancers Jobs/Skills

When it comes to the skills that freelancers are offering, photography makes up 50% of all freelancer policies sold in 2020. The arts and design workforce saw an almost 75% freelancer workforce in 2019. Over 60% of freelancers offer 2-3 skill sets with 33% describing their skills as “creative”. When it comes to skilled services, 45% of freelancers are going to offer a service they are skilled in.

Finding Work As A Freelancer

Finding work as a freelancer is one of the most intimidating things to do. Many people do not know where to start and often quit after striking out. With great sites such as Upwork, Freelancer.com, and Fiverr offering millions of clients and freelancers, you should have no problem finding work on any of these sites. Upwork for example has over 17 million current users in 2020. Freelancer.com currently has over 30 million users. Fiverr has just surpassed over 50 million transactions this past year.

Future Of Freelancing

With more and more people choosing to freelance over the traditional workplace, the future is looking bright for freelancing. 68% of freelancers admit that their life quality has greatly improved since working independently. With COVID-19 increasing competition in the space, the demand has increased as well. 53% of freelancers are optimistic that demand will increase or stay the same once the pandemic has been controlled.

Source: thimble.com