We asked a series of questions to understand how much time is being spent freelancing.
This is to understand the difference between (and perhaps dispel the myth) freelancing vs. “side hustles”, and see how much time is being comitted to working in this fashion.
We also asked about how much time was taken off, or if individuals were unable to work at any time during the period, and their reasons for becoming self-employed.
The majority of our group takes their primary source of income from self-employment in 2024.
For those who said it was not their primary source of income, most explained that they had a partial year in self-employment, or combined PAYE with self-employment (i.e. inside IR35), which is a common scenario for many freelancers. Some explained they had other sources of household income, such as a partner.
Some (but very few) individuals were freelancing on the side to another form of work, such as employment.
The majority of our group committed to self-employment for 5 days a week, a fairly standard working week - across employment and self-employment.
10% of our group were making themselves available for more than five days a week.
22.6% were working four days a week. According to recent data, only 1.6% of perm jobs are offering 4 days a week - so self-employment seems to offer more more flexibility in terms of working hours in comparison to employment.
A small percentage around 5% are working less than three days a week, aligning with the number of people who stated they were not generating the primary source of income from self-employment.
86.98% of our group are committing between 4-10 hours a day towards self-employment, with almost half of the group doing a fairly stardard ‘7.5 hour day’.
Combining this is the days a week being worked - self-employment seems to be not radically different to the classic 9-5 job in the way many are working.
However, 30% of freelancers do seem to be working longer hours than an average 9-5 employee, perhaps dispelling the myth that freelancers work fewer hours.
38.6% of freelancers are voluntarily taking off between 14-28 days a year.
In the UK, full-timeemployees are entitled to 28 days of paid annual leave per year, as mandated by the Working Time Regulations 1998.
Freelancers, however, do not receive pay for any time taken off.
24.19% of freelancers are taking off more than the mandatory 28 days of annual leave which employees are entitled to - however, 36.48% are taking off less than 14 days of voluntary leave during the year.
8% are not taking off any time at all.
