In addition to registering your business as an SP or LLC, if you’re working out of the United States you may need to obtain a business license in order to work as a freelancer. Note that the requirements for obtaining a business license vary by state, so it’s best to look into local requirements. Some states such as Washington require all businesses to get a business license, while others require licenses from a narrow group of professions (e.g. lawyers, doctors, architects, etc.).
One of the biggest concerns of freelancers relates to health insurance. If you’re based out of the United States, you have a variety of options to make sure you’re covered in sickness and in health:
If you don’t fit into any of the above, see if there’s a freelance union that you can join that offers plans. If this option isn’t available to you, shop for a plan in a federal or state online marketplace. Begin this search at HealthCare.gov, a site operated under the Affordable Care Act to serve the residents of U.S. states that have opted not to create their own state exchanges.
In the United States, freelancers are responsible for paying any federal, state, and local taxes. Rather than devote a huge section to this topic, we suggest hiring an accountant when you first begin freelancing in order to make sure your newfound business is fully compliant. Alternatively, check out some of the great resources already online to begin your freelance tax education.
Finally, if you’re working from home, take the time to set up a proper home office. Invest in an ergonomic chair and comfortable desk, as this is where you’ll be spending the vast majority of your time. Consider buying backup hardware in case you run into any technical difficulties while on the job. "If your place offers both cable and fiber optic internet, I’d take them both," says Lucas. "If one goes down, you can use the other. The same goes for a computer — buy a backup and make sure you can switch between one and the other fairly quickly."
In addition to your physical office, make sure you’re well-equipped to work collaboratively in a remote environment. Some of the tools favored by remote freelancers globally include Zoom for video chats, TopTracker for time tracking and invoicing, Google Docs for collaboration, and Trello for project management.
One of the greatest challenges you’ll face as a freelancer is finding your next engagement. See below for our guide on how to effectively manage your own brand, how to market yourself, and how to take advantage of talent networks to expose yourself to lucrative freelance opportunities.
Before you begin working as a freelancer, reach out to former colleagues and let them know that you’re offering your services as a freelancer. This could be as simple as publishing a thoughtful LinkedIn post to going through your list of contacts and emailing everyone with the exciting news. All of our freelancers interviewed have received a huge selection of jobs from their personal network. If you build a reputation as a reliable and efficient worker, this could be enough to support your business entirely. "I most definitely do not advertise," says Solon. "I just do the work to a top-notch standard, and that brings clients in."
Make sure to clean up your public image–anything from your LinkedIn to Twitter to those old Facebook posts you may have forgotten about. While this is important for employment of any type, it’s particularly critical for freelancing where your name and reputation are responsible for bringing in business. Lucas recommends a simple trick to check on the health of your public presence: "Google yourself from time to time and see what people find about you."
Consider opening up a personal website in your name that you can direct clients to. While not absolutely necessary and more important for certain types of work over others (e.g. development and design), a personal website can be a great place to introduce yourself to clients and show off a portfolio of previous work. When publishing a portfolio online, make sure you have permission to speak about the work publicly.
Professional talent networks such as Toptal offer some key advantages that create an almost blended freelance-company environment to support you in your career as a freelancer and give you access to some of the highest-paying freelance jobs. These services handle a wide variety of the administrative and logistical challenges discussed above (including marketing, contract negotiation, and invoicing, among many others). The curation of job opportunities is a particularly salient feature of freelance marketplaces, especially when these opportunities would otherwise be hard to come by. "It’s a strange dynamic of the labor market for programmers," says Lucas. "I send my resume to places, and I don’t get a response; I talk to a recruiter or apply through Toptal, same resume, and they’re asking me when I can start."
How much are your skills worth on the freelance market? This is a question that’s kept many freelancers up at night, and there’s no clear answer. In this section, we’ll discuss contracts, pricing strategies, and payments to help make sure you’re getting the proper reward for your work.
Regardless of what type of freelancing you do, you’ll want to have a ready-to-go contract available to send new clients (larger clients may have their own standard contracts for freelancers; if this is the case, make sure to read the fine print!). Contracts should include detail covering the scope of work, deliverables, deadlines, fees, information on work ownership, and the duration of the professional relationship.
Contracts are agreed to on a case-by-case basis. "You’ll negotiate how much up-front, how much based off of milestones," says Laurie. "Sometimes it’s 20% or 50% upfront, depending on the duration of the work, with progress payments along the way, or a retainer." If you’re not operating through a talent network that negotiates price and terms for you, this sales aspect of freelancing is something you must get comfortable with.
Finding a fair pay rate isn’t just important to your wallet, but the key to your professional learning and work experience. "The best-paid jobs are usually the most motivating, most interesting," says Lucas. "Sometimes raising prices protects you from disappointment since people pay the value they think they’re getting out of you." Our experts found their price point through trial-and-error and looking at their peers in the market. Below, we provide some expert-sourced recommendations for finding your ideal rate.
I was terrible at this starting out, admits David. "Charging $20 or $30 an hour, not factoring things that took my time but weren’t clearly billable time." As David figured out how to properly track his time and continued adding new clients, he found his rate range through studying the market, assessing his skill level, and thinking carefully about each project. "I’ve learned from my own experience, from other people’s experience, and reading books. I’ve looked at survey numbers to figure out what the market is doing, then I’ve tried to place myself in that market, thinking about how competitive my skills are at this moment in time," says David. "I then try to factor in how much I want the job and how much work managing the client will be."
If you get more than 80% of the jobs you apply for, you’re priced too low. You need a bunch of clients to reject you. I closely monitor what percentage of jobs I get, and try to keep it to 80% or less.
Of course, to be comfortable rejecting jobs you need to financially position yourself in such a way that you don’t need to jump on every job offered, which Solon readily admits. "I’m negotiating from a position of luxury. If they want to walk away, they can walk away.
You’ll quickly find that there’s no one-size-fits-all price that’s appropriate for every client for every engagement (or different engagements for the same client). "To me, it’s part of that sales job," says Laurie. "If the client wants a deliverable at a certain time, here’s my rate. Does that fit into your budget? Then you go from there, with a lot of back and forth."
Hire a HackerAs mentioned above, if you’re part of a talent network like Toptal, payment processing may be handled for you. If you’re not operating through a talent network or job board (or if you are, but they don’t handle payments), you’ll need to learn about invoicing. Create an invoice template to send to clients for work completed. If you and the client have agreed to an hourly pay structure, carefully track hours over the course of the engagement to make sure you’re getting fairly compensated for work completed. Ensure you’re set up to receive payments via ACH, bank wires, and PayPal, or use an online tool like TopTracker that offers free time tracking, invoicing, and the ability to receive no-fee payments.
The ability to work as a freelancer creates enormous opportunity for highly-skilled and motivated individuals all over the world. This guide is intended to provide you with everything necessary to get your freelancing career started — now it’s up to you to begin applying for jobs and getting your first clients! Before we end, take a look at these final thoughts from our experts on how to sustain a long and successful freelance career.
The person you negotiate your contract with may not be the person you’re reporting to. "It’s not unusual to be working for someone that wasn’t involved in the signing of the contract or defining the statement of work," says Laurie. "The expectations of the person you’re working with may be completely different than the description of the job agreed to in the negotiation." In cases like this, it pays to practice clear and regular communication with all parties involved to avoid complications down the line if the work changes. "If there’s a change to the work that was scoped and that you’ll be paid to do, you need to make sure the original person is aware of those changes."
While remote work enables you to design your best work day and focus to a degree an office worker can only dream of, you may find that you’re missing out on office chatter related to the project. "If you work remotely a lot, you don’t get to hear what’s happening around the office, which is a blessing but it can be a problem at the same time," says Lucas. "It’s hard to get all of the information that you need." To combat this, Lucas has found a solution in forming office relationships that are more casual in nature. "I try to grow relationships with people at the office and have one-on-one calls, like having a coffee," says Lucas. "At my current job, there are a few people I have casual calls with apart from my manager that help keep me in the loop."
If a client isn’t satisfied, take the time to figure out what went wrong. Not only will this help you to improve your work for future engagements, but it’s critical for maintaining healthy client relationships. "If you should be unfortunate enough to get a dissatisfied client, work your butt off with them to find out what went wrong," says Solon. "I’m willing to put in ten times the effort to find out from an unhappy client where I went wrong. In my ten years of freelancing, I’ve had only one momentarily dissatisfied client. Now, they’re one of my best friends."
If you’re a highly-skilled professional looking to launch a freelancing career, or if you’re currently a top freelancer looking to access engaging, remote work opportunities with the world’s leading organizations, apply to join the Toptal talent network!
Toptal is an elite network of the world’s top talent, connecting our community of the best and brightest in business, design, and technology with top organizations around the globe. Through Toptal, you can become a part of the top 3% of talent from anywhere in the world, on your terms. All Toptal clients are thoroughly vetted — only those with the budget, skill, and intent to hire make the cut.
In today’s tech-savvy world, freelancing has become a go-to career choice for many IT and tech pros. The appeal? You get to enjoy flexible hours and a wide range of exciting projects. But with so many options out there, you might be wondering: which industries are actually hiring the most tech freelancers in the UK?
The financial sector is one of the leading employers of tech contractors, especially in the UK’s thriving FinTech space. Banks, investment firms, and insurance companies rely heavily on technology for digital transformation, cybersecurity, data analytics, and automation.
Healthcare providers and medical technology companies are adopting digital solutions faster than ever. From patient data management to telemedicine, the healthcare industry is seeking freelancers with tech expertise to modernize systems, ensure data security, and improve patient care.
The retail and e-commerce industries are investing in digital solutions to enhance customer experience, improve supply chains, and build smarter platforms. With online shopping and AI-driven personalization becoming standard, these businesses often rely on freelancers to stay competitive.
Telecommunications companies are continually innovating to improve network infrastructure, mobile services, and 5G technology. Many hire freelance IT and tech professionals to work on short-term projects related to these advancements, creating a thriving market for specialists.
With the rise of digital content, streaming platforms, and interactive media, the media and entertainment industry increasingly depends on technology. Freelancers in this sector can contribute to everything from app development to video game programming.
Yes, the UK government and public sector organizations increasingly outsource tech work to freelancers for digital services, cybersecurity, and infrastructure projects. With a focus on improving online services for citizens, IT contractors have plenty of opportunities in this sector.
Whether you're a seasoned IT contractor or just starting out, the demand for freelance tech professionals is growing across multiple industries in the UK. By targeting sectors like finance, healthcare, retail, and telecom, you can position yourself for success.
Your portfolio isn’t just a collection of past projects—it’s your digital handshake, your elevator pitch, and a key tool for winning clients. We're sharing 10 practical tips for building an IT contracting portfolio that grabs attention and wins clients.
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