Freelancers and Consultants Must Read This

FreelanceSwitch.com is a blog full of insights and resources for the freelancers and consultants of the world (For those wondering about what's the difference between the two, this link provides a good explanation). They conducted a survey last year, and published the results of the survey today. You can download the survey results here

A few statistics in the 50+ page report that I found very interesting are:

  •  32.6% of freelancers earn less than they can from full-time employment.
  • 80% freelancers would prefer more money.
  • Only 22% of the freelancers work less and earn more compared to their prior job-oriented careers… and yet
  • 88.9% of the freelancer are happier now that they are freelancing.

Some more interesting statistics, particularly for the Pakistani Freelancers

  • Referrals account for 89% of new work (so keep your clients happy)
  • 15% work comes through blogs (start a blog duh)
  • The hourly average rate for softwre developers is around 73$ (stop charging 13$ per hour Pakis, its the lowest rate in the world (besides Bulgaria and Indonesia) in the survey.
  • UK freelance programmers charge the highest rate (158$)
  • Of the industries categorized in the survey, software designers and programmers earn the most.

Let me know if you find anything else of interest in the survey pdf.

Oh, and do join the Pakistani Freelancers group on Facebook if you are one. 

7 Comments

  1. bilish says:

    I’ve already bookmarked FreelanceSwitch.com // very good resource for all kinds of freelancers,
    massive insights playing solo. cool 🙂

    Thanks for sharing info about the report, worth a look.

    Joined the Group there on Facebook.

  2. Momekh says:

    Thank you for the heads up! 🙂
    Freelancing ‘can’ be the first step towards something big – in fact, in many cases, it is the only step.
    But if you hire a a guy or two, even then do you qualify as a freelancer? Or a CEO? Or both? 🙂
    ‘Freelancer’, given the huge number of them around, always smells of someone who is a loner and working on whim! 🙂 I can present a stronger case for this here, but that is not what my comment is about…

    I am commenting here rather, to show a subtle form of appreciation for your ‘from-the-heart’ comment at my post over at LMB.

    God be with you and your family,
    God bless & good luck in your work,
    M.

  3. Sohaib Athar says:

    bilish: Thanks for joining, I don’t have any solid plans for the group but Badar Khushnood invited me to admin so there I am – let me know if you have any ideas for the group.

    Momekh: Thanks for your prayers.
    With the volatile situation in our country, it doesn’t take a lot to create panic, and perspective change when one is a parent – I realized that only recently, before that I was apathetic to the whole mess we are in.

    I hesitate to define words, but one can be a freelancer, consultant and entrepreneur all at the same time. I would say these are shades of antonyms for ‘corporate-whore’ or ‘cubicle-slave’ aka salaried. With all its ups and downs, its a fun ride 🙂

  4. bilish says:

    Hey all!

    Thanks a lot for all those kind words.
    Indeed, we’re passing through the darkest time of our history, God help us

    About the group, well nothing in particular at present.
    You need to check out G&W and P@SHA joint initiative [B]STARTUP INSIDERS[/B]
    http://www.greenwhite.org

    🙂

  5. Ahsan Rauf says:

    Nice Website. I think you yourself is a Freelancer?
    Which programming technologies do you work with ? PHP ?

    i am also a Web Developer and would like you to share you SEO knowledge with me.

  6. Ahsan Rauf says:

    http://jobs.freelanceswitch.com/jobs/667

    This project wants 3 million visitors a month? which is bloody big effort if any freelancer can do ?

    what do you think is the best way to get a website to this level. I have my website and i want your experience to tell me how can i get my website into this traffic level.

  7. bilish says:

    I don’t why i got notification about your comments today, since you posted in on 12th Feb 🙂 No idea

    I would like to know what kind of content your offering?

    If you can work on issues like
    Content
    Accessibility issues
    Presentation

    the list is huge, but let’s just talk about these.

    Content is the king no matter what medium you working or anything you are selling. This becomes crucial because average user won’t spending 2 mins in order to figure out the quality of the content posted on any particular website. Remember! we’re selling to probably most empowered person in terms of information and decision making powers that he/she has while surfing.

    Accessibility issues are often ignored by people that ignore the communication aspect and focus more on the decoration. Remember it should a place for information which can be easily accessed and not a DUKAN of HALWAI. Efficient and proper CSS structure can answer all these queries.

    Presentation
    Web 2.0 is on. We all know what does that bring to the visitor’s plate so getting his/her loyalty is rather becoming more easy, I guess 🙂

    In short, Keeping up with the trend is good to capture a larger portion of market share, but don’t ignore other aspects and the CONTENT is the ultimate KING… it’s true on any day.

    I’m sure this little info would help.
    Ask more about such issues on webdev.pk, so it would be lively and informative for other people.
    These are forums for Pakistani web designers and developers.

    Bilish