Freelance careers

In the past all of us worked 8 hour job, and continued with the same employers for long periods, in many cases for our full working lives. Now jobs for life are rare and non-standard working arrangements such as self-employment, part-time work or freelancing are much more common. According to the Office of National Statistics, 13% of workers in the UK are self-employed, 7% work on a freelance basis and 24% work part-time.

Freelancing also affords the person more free time compared to other side jobs. This is because freelancing does not require the person to render a specific number of hours. Most of the freelance jobs are on project basis. The schedule is given at the start of the contract. It is up to the freelancer to manage or budget his time so that he can finish the job on or before the deadline. This is actually a benefit of freelancing.

Freelance careers in computer programming are very common but not many computer programmers work entirely from home. Most freelance software engineers still work in offices on client sites, doing things much as they would in a standard office job. Freelance journalism and photography often involve going to specific places at specific times to meet people and cover events.

The World Wide Web and the speedy transfer of data allow people to telecommute. Although they would still be doing the job, they don’t have to be in the same area, location or country as the company they are freelancing for. They can work from home and do the transactions over the Internet.

Now freelancers can easily find work through the Internet. The Internet has become a good facilitator of freelancers and employers around the world. These jobs can range from writing short articles to language tutorials to architectural designs. The demand for freelancers is very high, as shown by the thousands of projects posted on the Internet.