The article titled “32 Stunning Freelance Statistics You Need To Know in 2023” by Romj Amon published at TechJury gives great insights into the global freelancing trend. I was absolutely intrigued by many of the numbers presented in it!
As the author mentions, times are changing, and “freelancing is no longer just a hobby or a side hustle reserved for pursuing passion projects that bring supplement income at best. Hundreds of millions of workers worldwide have made a conscious decision to reject the traditional employment model.”
This is what I’ve known for a decade now. But let’s take a look at the statistics, there’s much insight into the freelancing trend and it is exciting to speculate what the future will look like.
Here’s my take on the most the significant year 2023 freelancing statistics, their meaning, and future trends I would predict us seeing in the near future. I pick a couple of numbers that might blow your mind when you start thinking about it!
Global trend
The numbers regarding the global trend of freelancing are quite crazy! Just look at these couple of numbers I picked here and think about what this means for the entire world!
Many of the numbers mentioned in the article cover the United States or North America as a whole, but let’s look at these freelancing statistics from a more interesting global perspective.
“1.57 billion people in the world are freelancers”
Those 1.57 billion people are almost 47% of the workforce worldwide. This number is insane!
In fact, this means that almost half of all people of working age are freelancing in one way or another. And it doesn’t look like this number would go down any time soon. This means, that soon, if you’re still not freelancing at least with a little side hustle, you’ll be an odd bird among all professionals.
Interestingly, these statistics don’t mention anything about remote work, thus, we can only speculate how many people might be freelancing remotely for global clients and how many focus on their local circles.
“Freelancers charge, on average, $28 an hour”
Although I’m not sure what geographic distribution is present in this number, it looks quite high compared to the perceived reputation of freelancing in general. How fast would you reach this hourly rate if you started from scratch? Or would you ever get there? Or would it be lower than your starting rate (like it was in my case)?
The number comes from Payoneer which does not cover even half of the freelance money streams, I’m sure. Let’s keep that in mind. My numbers are not in, that’s for sure.
“Clients don’t pay 74% of freelancers on time”
This is probably the worst number in the whole article! It looks too high a number to be realistic. It was mentioned, though, that the delay for being “on time” is considered 2 months in this case.
Also, it is mentioned that it is the same number, 74%, of freelancers who have not received payment from a client at all at least once… i.e. the freelancer got ghosted after finishing the work. That I can easily believe… although I haven’t had that experience myself, pheww!
The author deduces here that “the freelance community still doesn’t get enough respect.” This might be true… yet, I recon that it depends on freelance professionals themselves how they look, and what respect they deserve. I haven’t had many issues with getting respect ever since I started online. Nor later when raising my rates sky-high.
“36% of freelancers are in the fields of web and graphic design and programming”
Well, there’s not much to say about that. Websites are still a big thing somehow. Myself as a metaverse guy for two decades might say that it is not web development or web design that you would need to start learning, go for the next big thing and make your name there as a pioneer.
Good programming skills in general will help you grasp the next programming paradigms quicker than those starting from scratch, that goes without saying. But going into a crowded space now might not be a great idea. Instead, find a good niche by examining what you’re good at and what is out there in the market now and in the near future.
“By September 2021, Google had employed more temps and contractors than full-time employees (150,000 vs. 144,000)”
If one of the most high-profile companies of our time is hiring more contractors than full-timers, it must mean something, right?
I think, what it means, is this:
- Core parts of the companies’ businesses will be taken care of by full-timers who stay and build the company
- Supplementary and temporary aspects of the business will no longer be done by full-timers but by freelancers
It should make perfect sense to everyone. Without a tough core competence, a company won’t stand on strong legs. I don’t think this fact will change any time soon.
Would this lead to a common organizational model where only the core part is indeed done by the company’s employees and almost everything else by highly specialized freelancers? Who knows. But it might be a model that we will see in the future.
Freelance sites
There are many interesting numbers regarding freelance platforms such as Upwork, my favorite, and many others.
“The global market size of freelance platforms was worth $4.43 billion in 2022”
Is this big business or what? Yes. The $4.43 billion market of 2022 will “reach $12.01 billion by 2028”. That means the money going through all the major freelance platforms (Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer, Toptal, and 99designs) will triple in 5 years!
Doesn’t this mean that if you’re not freelancing at least a little, you’ll be left out of the global economic growth in general?
“Upwork has over 16 million freelancers”
This number alone tells it all. Well, almost. Yet, nobody but Upwork leadership knows the real number as they never release the actual numbers. Other resources speculate a much smaller number, about 1-2 million.
Let’s assume the 16 million is accurate.
It’s been a known fact that about half of the people joining Upwork never make a single dollar over there, so, with these statistics, we could assume that there are about 8 million freelancers who actually do business on the platform.
Anyway, it is a big number!
This means, that any newcomers will be battling their way through the ranks to make some genuine earnings against millions of others. Literally, millions. The key, obviously, is to pick the right niche from the start, like I did when I started.
“3 in 10 Fortune 100 companies source freelance talent from Upwork”
This might, as surprising as it may sound, prove that Upwork has succeeded in getting big businesses on its platform! I, for one, have been benefiting from this greatly. A 20-hour job that pays for about $4K… who would reject it?
A review I got from an Upwork Enterprise client (a Fortune 100 company).
The best part of Enterprise Clients is that they rarely complain about the budget or even start to negotiate about it. Why, you might ask? Well, first of all, they can easily afford it. Second, they usually just need someone much more highly specialized than anyone in their own teams.
Thus, the value and the price meet very nicely in most deals done on Upwork.
“Developers were the most sought-after professionals on the platform in May 2022”
This is perhaps no surprise to anyone who is on Upwork in any capability. Software developers are used to working remotely anyway and the results of their work are always digital. I bet web developers are the most common subcategory of the 243 roles that the platform offers.
What can we learn from 2023 freelancing statistics
It isn’t bad at all for those who are already freelancing and mastering the art. But it’s the next generation that might have it tough. More people freelancing, more competition for everyone. It will be more and more important to find a good niche
What you’d need to do to secure your future as a young professional, is:
- Learn everything you can about freelancing in a systematic way
- Get a mentor who can help you get to decent money early on by giving you personalized guidance and feedback on your progress
- Practice, practice, and practice your art continuously
- Level up and pivot your niche when you meet limits for your business growth
Freelancing has already grown into a megatrend, and it will only get bigger. More and more people will compete in this market. It may mean that those with ordinary skills will be worse off, working for peanuts or even less, whereas the most high-end guys will probably stay safe as always.
The global presence of freelance sites makes economies even out once this thing gets big enough. It’s just a matter of time. Global competition will affect every freelancer. May the best (coconut)man win!
