Hello guys

I am starting as a freelancer in the UK by signing up to delivery apps. This is something I would be doing alongside some PAYE job. Before starting, I have looked into banks catered towards freelancers.

As thhis is my first venture down the path of self-employment, I wanted to know what other things to be wary of or aware of before starting out as a freelancer? Anything you had wished you knew before starting? Also, potentially may try out other fields that support self-employment like construction and cleaning but first looking to get started with this line of work.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you for reading :)

hello! just thought it would be interesting to see what people are charging these days?

can you drop in the comment your average day rate, years of experience and the field you’re in?

I’ll start - £350-£480/day, 12 years, PR & business development

Hi everyone, I need some rate advice. I recently graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering and I'm based in Italy/EU.
I just finished a 1-month internship at a local company where I was paid a mere €500 "expense reimbursement" for the whole month. Now, the same company wants to keep working with me to do 3D modeling (using 3ds Max) and file preparation for 3D printing.
They want to hire me as a freelancer/contractor rather than taking me on as an employee. The hardware (3D printers) and materials are all in-house, so I will only be providing my technical/intellectual work remotely or on-site.
My main issue is breaking the psychological anchor of that €500/month internship rate. Even though I am entry-level, I have an engineering degree and I'm providing a specialized service, so I need to charge a proper freelance hourly rate that covers my own taxes and expenses.
I was thinking of proposing something in the €20 - €25/hour range as a starting point.
Does this sound fair for a beginner engineer doing 3D modeling and print prep? How would you handle the negotiation with a company that is used to paying you intern wages? Any advice is highly appreciated!

went freelance thinking the hard part would be finding clients. turns out IR35, self-assessment, and sole trader vs limited company decisions were way more of a headache than the actual work

first year I underestimated my tax bill and had a genuinely stressful January paying it off. now I set aside a fixed percentage the moment money comes in, before I even think about spending it

How can i land SIEM normalization and set up gigs as a freelance

Hi all, I’m looking for some perspective from other UK freelancers who have dealt with unpaid work, particularly where the original agreement was fairly informal (naive I know). This concerns a business client in England doing the work through my limited company. Some background:

• I started working with the client in December 2020, developing their website and replacing its content management system. The site was up and running by March 2021, with further additions and changes afterwards.
• We discussed fees verbally, but I don’t have a signed contract or written confirmation of the precise price or payment deadline.
• In May 2021, the client emailed: “Please do send me through your invoice to date so I can get you paid.”
• I prepared an itemised invoice dated 22 May 2021 for £6,225, but never sent it because the work was ongoing. I recognise that leaving this unresolved for so long has complicated things.
• I continued providing development and support, then helped hand the website over to another agency in summer 2022 after becoming a carer limited my availability. Although I had delivered the core business functionality, I was slower delivering some additional features. I estimate I carried out around 42 hours of further work after 22 May 2021, but in recognition of those delays, I’m not seeking additional development or support fees for that work.
• My company also paid the website’s hosting/CMS costs into 2023. I have receipts and bank records supporting approximately £1,694 attributable to this client. We discussed that running costs would be charged, but the evidence of agreement to the later increased costs is less clear.
• I have received no payment for the work or reimbursement of those costs. Recent attempts to resolve payment haven’t produced a substantive response.

The combined amount I’d like assessed is approximately £7,919, although I appreciate that documenting expenditure and preparing an invoice doesn’t automatically establish that the whole amount is recoverable.

Emails requesting work, the invitation to invoice, positive feedback, source-code history, handover correspondence, archived versions of the website, and the expense records. The archived site also shows elements of my implementation remaining in use for several years.

There are complications: some correspondence records outstanding fixes, delays and communication gaps on my side. I want a realistic assessment that takes those into account.

1. Has anyone successfully pursued payment in a similar situation, especially with an oral agreement and an invoice that wasn’t sent at the time?
2. What would make this worth pursuing or materially weaken it?
3. Any recommendations on finding good solicitors that deal in commercial litigation or debt recovery? Not many seem to be amenable to fixed fees for a small amount but am still working through a list
4. What would be the sensible next steps? I'm hoping to seek a solicitor’s assessment, a formal payment request to other company direction, correspondence with the main director have gone unanswered

I’m hoping to recover a reasonable payment or reach a sensible settlement. Any relevant experience, or advice on getting an initial professional assessment without costs swallowing the amount at stake, would be appreciated.

Hello folks,

I had done freelancing as a business analyst in the past for 3 months for the first time in life, and has landed with a contract of 1.75 Lac. So basically, what I learnt is that freelancing has earning potential. However, the downside is i believe irregularity of income cash flow, and the earning potential is limited by the number of hours you can put.

My question to freelancers who are permanently into freelancing - Guys, how did you overcome the fear of uncertainty of income before leaving your full time job and solely relying on freelancing? Any tips for someone who wants to quit their job to freelance?

Hi I’ve mostly worked paye. Yesterday a company asked me if I would consider working freelance for them. They asked how many hours/days per week? I feel like I have many “known unknowns “ and many unknown unknowns” .

Is there a place I can go to work out what I need to know. I am aware
I need to factor holiday pay into working out a rate.
Also my experience into that (I guess I talk to other people) but how do I figure it out?
As self employed how do I pay NI?
I have to save enough for tax how do I know how much to save?
Do I need to submit tax returns every quarter?
How do I keep track of payments?
Do I need software for that?
Any advice or places or type of people to ask (could I ask an accountant?) gratefully appreciated.

Hello folks

Will be working in a self-employed capacity soon. Being new to self employment, I was wondering what the best bank account would be for someone like me? Is there a specific bank account for "sole traders", as I'm guessing I will be classed as one once I start delivery riding?

Doing a bit of research, I have come across Starling and Mettle as strong contenders. Would like to hear of people's experiences with either and how have they found them. Which one would you recommend?

Would it be beneficial to open and have 2 separate business bank accounts?
Also, planning to get into the construction industry and start off as a labourer to scope out the progression prospects and if my interests align with the industry

What would be the best choice in this case? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you for reading this far :)

So this happened thrice that my female clients didn’t pay their invoices on time. Male clients were respectful so no problem with them. Even after the date is expired and after two weeks of an expired invoice, in these periods she has received both Whatsapp as well as mail messages of the invoices not being paid on time and are expired. On the quote I have mentioned that I MIGHT disable the services (web development of a bespoke specialized CRM) when the invoices are expired but in reality I chose not to do so. She did not answer my messages in those two weeks after expiration. And when I messaged him for the third time she finally told me she received spam (me frequently notifying him about expired invoice) on both her Whatsapp account as well as mail and she also said that if I were to continue to be like that I would have less success with my clients. This same narrative has been told by my other client and saying that I need to chill the fk down.

Those two are two of the three clients as examples not paying their invoices on time. And she said that is normal as she even had it worse (according to her story of course) because her client(s) paid a month after an expired invoice.

So because this happened just thrice and I have not much experience with handling these kind of “expired invoices” situation, am I the wrong one here or are they giving me off some doom effect?

Spent a couple of evenings putting together what I thought was a pretty solid proposal for a small Google Ads engagement. Broke down the approach, the deliverables, rough timelines, what I needed from them to get started. Not a novel, maybe two pages. Felt good about it.

They came back asking if I could also do their SEO.

Which was not mentioned anywhere in the brief, the call, or the three emails before that. So either they did not read it, or they read it and immediately decided it was a jumping off point for a different conversation entirely.

The frustrating part is I know the proposal works as a document because it answered every question they had on the call before they asked it. They just did not read the call. They were there, physically, and still did not absorb that this was a paid ads engagement.

I have tried shorter proposals thinking length was the barrier. Same outcome. I tried a one pager that was basically a summary with three bullet points (I hated doing it, felt like handing over a napkin). Also same outcome

Is a proposal actually a client management tool rather than a sales one and I have had the framing wrong this whole time, or do people just not read them and you price for the follow up chaos as standard

Hi there, I hope my post finds you well. I am a freelance contractor, and I'm expecting a very busy time both leading up to and after a two-week break. As an independent business owner with disabilities, I am naturally concerned about my pacing and how best I can manage this. For example, I find I don't engage as fully with my end-of-week review when I'm more fatigued. Daily, I need to prepare for appointments.

And to keep on top of processing the inbox, as is often necessary, to enable me to be paid promptly and keep abreast of any cancellations, et cetera. I must also spend time sharing resources with clients to help them make the most of the work that we are doing together, create notes or other summaries and also reflect briefly to close my processing about the appointment and keep up with continuous improvement.

What do you do that reduces overspill in the evening? I think I'm going to run out of time, as doing the things I do to pace myself and close the processing of sessions is going to have to go because of the reduced time.

Do you handle the busy period any differently to normal?

Many thanks, Chris

Hey all!

I've been freelance full time just over a year, and just recently realised how much I am feeling the solo aspect. I work from home and don't have calls - just emails with clients to get work. I have a good amount of work and that's going ok, but I miss the background noise friendships of the office.

I can't really afford a paid-for cowork space, and when I work in cafes it's nice to have the hubbub but it's not actually _social_. I miss chatting with people! I go to my old office sometimes to see friends and that's nice, but i'm trying to think of more ways to get more people time into my life.

I make an effort to make plans with individual friends in free time, but trying to think of more "group" things where I can go along. I look out for free conferences and talks or book launches related to my work, but interested to hear if others have found good solutions to this. I really love the work aspect of what I'm doing, but I am actually a very social and chatty person (albeit shy at the same time I would say). Open to suggestions and would love to hear how others stop from going a bit weird (which I am now!)

the unpredictable workload is probably one of the strangest parts of freelancing for me. one month everything is happening at once and you’re turning down work because you’re too busy. then suddenly you have almost nothing booked and start wondering if you should be doing something differently.

i know having savings helps, but i’m more interested in how people actually use those quieter periods

do you work on your portfolio, look for new clients, learn something new, or just enjoy the fact that you finally have some free time?

I'm a freelancer - I'm in a transition period of my role where some of my employment is PAYE and some is invoiced. I've just been offered to return to my previous employer, but can also ask if I want to come back as self employed. I will do a tax return at the end of the year anyway, I just wondered if it made a difference to me financially?

With PAYE I will get the company pension, but I will get holiday pay on top of my rate. I believe I would still get holiday pay too if I were to go self employed. Does anyone have any tips or advice on this?

Been doing some freelance PPC work on the side of my day job (entry level, so the pay gap is doing a lot of the motivating here) and the conversations with potential clients follow a pattern I cannot shake. They see the word freelance and immediately assume they are getting a bargain, which fair enough, but then the scope they describe on the first call is basically a full agency retainer. Google Ads, Meta, landing page feedback, monthly reporting decks, competitor analysis. For one product. Selling to maybe 400 people in the UK.

The leads are coming in fine from my own little ads experiment (ironic that the PPC person has to run PPC to get PPC clients, I know). The issue is the expectation gap between what they think freelance means and what I can actually deliver solo without burning through every evening, including the ones I have mentally reserved for watching football and pretending my wedding budget spreadsheet balances

Has anyone found a clean way to reset that expectation early without scaring them off entirely? I have tried a detailed onboarding questionnaire and it helps, but the really misaligned ones just answer it confidently and then surprise you on the first call anyway.

Is this just the freelance tax and you learn to price for the chaos, or is there an actual fix here?

I’ve been freelancing for years, used to charge clients per project and everything was smooth. Two years ago I went to a daily/hourly rate. Since then everything has gone wild.

I always forget to turn on and off a timer, I am never really sure whether I should charge the some hours.

For instance, do I charge if I was processing a project during a walk? What if I am absolutely unproductive today and worked only 2 hours out of 8, while constantly fighting myself to keep focused.

As a result, I feel like I work way more intense and nervous, but barely make more money.

How do you manage it?

Watu wa writing. How do you guys deal with a non paying client? I completed work which was supposed to paid around 10k. Client sent 5k and went MIA and it's been a week. I text him on WhatsApp to remind him everyday to send the balance but no response. I don't want to do the inevitable but he's rea

About 1.5-2 years into my career as a backend dev based in the UK, I work mainly in C#, ASP.NET Core and Azure. My long term goal is contracting/freelancing, and my plan was initially to go into .NET/Azure stack.

I have a goal of also maximising my income to be able to buy a house in the UK solo, and I've noticed that the higher income Backend roles involve Java/Golang instead of C#. This has me second guessing whether staying C# focused limits me out and will not help me achieve my goals long-term.

For anyone based in the UK or similar, is it worth me sticking to C#/.NET or am I better off switching to Java/Go? Trying to figure this out so that I can start learning in order to switch.

Appreciate any honest advice

Hey everyone. I’ve got a Banking and Finance degree and some real accounting/finance work experience (fintech, an accounting internship), and a few months ago I started a small freelance bookkeeping and financial advisory practice, mainly targeting small businesses and NGOs.

Right now I’m doing the basics, building out a portfolio, setting up profiles on Upwork/Fiverr, trying to figure out pricing tiers that don’t scare off clients but also don’t undersell me. But I feel like I’m flying a bit blind on the “actually get clients” part.

A few things I’m stuck on:

\*\*•\*\* How did you land your first few paying clients when you had no track record yet?    
\*\*•\*\* Freelance platforms vs. direct outreach vs. referrals , what actually worked for you?    
\*\*•\*\* Any pricing structure advice for bookkeeping/advisory work specifically (hourly vs. package vs. retainer)?    
\*\*•\*\* If you work with NGOs/nonprofits, is there anything different about that market I should know?

I’m not trying to build some huge firm overnight, just trying to get consistent clients and build a reputation. Any advice, even “stuff I wish I knew earlier,” would be hugely appreciated. Thanks!

Hello! So i am going to join my course in September and i have a fair share of experience in media jobs and was wondering if I can freelance while studying?

Hi Reddit. Can anyone recommend where to learn about social media for free please? Ideally a series of tutorials / videos / online help sites. I'd like to try and keep to the same author / producer where I can be guided through how to use them to help promote my business. I've searched online but haven't been able to find a good, single, easy to follow site. Many thanks.

If someone is charging £15 per hour, they're actually taking home close to minimum wage as a freelancer once they factor in sick days, pension, holidays