Who took part in the study?
We asked a series of questions to understand the demographics of our respondents. This data helps us to identify if there are any major differences between major groups within the study, i.e. do those ealier in their careers have different experiences to those who are later in their careers?
Our group skews towards people with more years of experience in work - suggesting that freelancing is more common amongst those with some years of experience in work.
This makes sense - as many will moving into freelancing after some years of experience in work, as jumping straight into self-employment without any career experience can be more challenging.
More than half of our group have been working for 4+ years in self-employment - and around 37% of have been working for less than 4 years.
21% of our group are new to self-employment (i.e within the new two years).
Our group is heavily skewed towards female respondents - with only 31.4% of our group identifying as male.
Whilst this is counter to the general freelancing population, which skews in the opposite direction: 61% male to 39% female (IPSE, 2023), this is a fairly consistent skew for our research group over the years, suggesting that men are less likely to be talking about their mental health - which aligns with broader research on this topic.
Our focus group is primarily based in the UK, with some respondents from other locations across the world.
Whislt we’ve generally focused on all responses, some data filters out non-UK respondents where the question is not relevant (i.e. IR35, government policy, etc).
The majority of our group is working in creative and related industries, such as design, copywriting, and marketing. This reflects the dominant roles in UK freelancing at larger.
In 2023, the most common occupation for freelance workers in the United Kingdom was in the artistic, literary and media sector at 318,000 workers, followed by teaching profressionals. Freelancers make up around 32% of the creative industries (DMCS, 2023).
