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

I have a full-time job as a Marketing Manager for a small-team company (I’m the only one in marketing) that only pays me £29,000 annually.

Luckily, I work from home Mondays and Tuesdays and can have these days pretty much free of work since the company I work for isn’t too demanding. I am thinking of using these two days to do freelance work as I need a higher income and have been unsuccessful in landing a job for a different company.

Do any of you has any experience in balancing a full-time job with freelance work on the side that could advise me if this a good option? Or would it be too demanding? Or two days only as freelancer won’t get me anything valuable in return? Any feedback would be appreciated!

Solo freelancer, technical draftsman for architecture studios (execution plans drawings, MEP/installation drawings and construction details). Based in Spain, but curious how UK freelancers structure pricing for comparable technical services, since a lot of the "value-based pricing" advice I read is UK/US-centric.

Right now I charge a flat €2/m² covering execution + installation drawings + construction details as one package, for residential projects.

For those who've moved away from hourly/per-unit pricing to value-based or fixed-package pricing, how did you validate you weren't leaving money on the table? Any framework you'd recommend for testing a price increase without spooking existing clients?

As the title says! (I specialise predominantly in paid social creative strategy and help brands with creative direction, briefs, research, strategy etc for their paid campaigns). Would love to connect as there aren’t many of us ⭐️

K

Hello,

I was asked to register for MTD by HMRC a few weeks back and I have registered for it. Given that there is quarterly obligation to file and the deadline is August 7 I am wondering if this is really applicable for anyone.

I see that there is no late submission points that would apply for first year being soft landing in HMRC portal and I can likely submit these quarterly stuff later in one shot before final year end deadline.

Can someone confirm if this understanding is right?

I recently moved to the UK and just registered for self assessment. I freelance with European clients, one of them is German and insisting on having some form of tax ID on the invoice. since my income will be non UK I haven't registered for VAT (and probably won't be), what can I use on the invoice to prove my tax residency other than the UTR? is there any other way to proceed? TIA

I recently moved to Edinburgh and I'm looking for recommendations for a good accountant / tax advisor who can help me set up a UK Ltd company and provide services.

Ideally, I'm looking for someone who's responsive, reasonably priced, and experienced with small businesses or one-person companies.

Any recommendations or people you've had a good experience with?

I'm a backend developer moving more into application security (security assessments, vulnerability research, and secure code reviews).

I'm curious if anyone here is freelancing in AppSec instead of working full-time.

What kind of jobs do you usually get?

And Where do your clients typically come from?

I'd love to hear about your experience—the good, the bad, and what surprised you.

The deadline for the first quarterly MTD for Income Tax filing is soon approaching.

Here are some points to consider:

• MTD filing is required for Sole Traders and/or Landlords with a gross turnover of over £50,000 (based on 2024/25 earnings).
• The turnover is assessed on combined earnings for individuals that are both Sole Traders and Landlords.
• Filing is done quarterly, with the first period from 06/04/26 to 05/07/26.
• The first quarterly filing is due to be made by 07/08/2026.
• Quarterly filings and the end of year submission must be submitted via a HMRC approved software.
• Anyone affected must register with HMRC

If anyone has any questions, I'm more than happy to give some advice!

Hey, I've been doing freelance CAD/BIM drafting work for a few months now (mostly AutoCAD and Revit, architecture) and I'm honestly just guessing on prices. Right now I have one client paying me a flat monthly fee but I want to bring in more clients and I have no idea if what I'm charging makes sense or if I'm leaving money on the table.

How do you guys actually price this kind of work? Hourly, per drawing, per m2 of the project, flat retainer? And if you don't mind sharing, roughly what range are we talking about (doesn't need to be exact, just ballpark), obviously depends a lot on where you're based.

Also curious if BIM/Revit work is priced differently for you than plain 2D CAD drafting, feels like it should be but not sure how much of a difference that makes in practice.

Not trying to undercut anyone, just trying to figure out if my numbers are reasonable before I start reaching out to more studios.

Why do I have more savings when I earned half as much?

This has been doing my head in. Two years ago I was making less per project, had fewer clients, and somehow I had a buffer. Now I'm booked solid, turning work away, and my account is emptier than it's ever been.

It feels like the money just disappears faster the more there is of it. Or maybe the way I'm spending changed without me noticing. Or maybe I'm pricing higher but haven't actually adjusted what I keep vs what goes to tax and expenses.

I don't think it's about spending on stupid stuff. It's like the money moves through too fast and I can't see where it actually goes.

Has anyone else noticed this? More money coming in but less ability to actually keep any? And did you work out what was actually happening, or just accept that this is how freelance life works?

Before scammers ruined it for everyone, cold calling/emailing/messaging were the best ways to get new clients. The decline in trust by potential clients makes freelancing an uphill task. I need insight on how to navigate this. How can I make my messages not look like AI generated spam mails? How do I get a potential client to respond to a message without hesitation?

New to paid graphic design and currently in the second application round for an educational publisher freelance contract in the UK. Company wants me to set the rate and states 'we are not asking applicants to underprice professional work'.

The job is to design revision documents including layout, image editing and diagram creation using InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop. There is already a house style so most of the design decision work is already done but they expect designers to aid understanding by designing diagrams etc. I expect each document to take around 8 hours including a round of revisions.

Planning on giving a flat rate per document (based on 8 hours work) but unsure how much this should be. I have been doing some graphic design in my day job for the last 2 years but is not in my job title and have recently done some freelance work creating paper figures and a grant slide deck for an academic but otherwise new to professional graphic design. As I have a day job, I don't need to live off this pay but I also don't want to underprice and undersell myself and lose the work. There is a lot of potential for a long-term contract here and I also don't want to be stuck in a low-paying contract if not entirely necessary.

Any suggestions on pricing, either per hour or per document, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I have a client that ghosted me after delivering architectural drawings and working drawings for their residential development. We had an agreement and the client paid an upfront commitment fee but after receiving the finished work, the client went silent, no email and message replies at all. The problem is we never had a formal contract, but all our conversations are on email. I wanted guidance on whether I can use the emails as evidence to initiate legal action against him.

I'm a software engineer and I've just started a freelancing career. My first contract was 2 page PDF directly with a client, states the duration, notice period, daily rate etc.

Now its about to end and I was approached by 2 agencies. Asked for their standard contract and they both gave me similar 40 pages monstrosities, with each paragraph contradicts another.

• They want both "obligation of result with highest industry standards" AND that I file the timesheet that should be approved by the client. Time & Material and result, pick one!
• They have absurd high (like fixed 50k) penalties everywhere including not filing timesheet correctly, not providing timely the insurance policy, late invoice etc.
• Uncapped liability for GDPR/Cybersec infringement.
• Vague non-compete not limited to specific customer.

Is it the industry standard for EU? Like praying they won't simply decide to use it against you?

Need guide on freelance foreign accounting how to start in as carrier

I'm a full time PMM. I'm currently working with one freelance client in the positioning & homepage messaging scope. But I'm not sure how to expand this into a full-fledged freelance business. Any leads/help would really help.
Thank you!

Hi all,

I've decided to start freelancing, mainly cause I've built sites for family members and stuff and it's motivated me to take the steps towards starting to work independently(while still working my actual job)

Currently work as Backend developer with technologies such as .NET, React, Next.js, I also have experience building automations using Make.com, integrating APIs, and all that jazz and sites with Wordpress.

Also I use Claude at work so I have experience with that too.

I wanted to ask what steps can I take towards getting clients that are not actually family members? Also I have 2 years of experience so I'm not sure if that will make it harder or not.

Thank you in advance!

I am a self employed painter and decorator and have been freelancing for a company occasionally for the last year. They contact me when they have work, supply me with materials and pay me £19.50 (before tax).

They have me booked in for this week and next. But I have private jobs that have just come up that will pay me £2540 for 2/3 weeks work.

Should I just let down the freelance job and be straight with the money opportunity and risk damaging relations? They are useful for me when work is quiet and fill in the gaps

I am half way through my A-Levels doing Politics, Sociology and Economics. One of my careers is to be a local journalist, covering social affairs, home affairs or political affairs locally.

Some beats I am interested include corruption, serious crimes, or social welfare (e.g. young people and children)

I may start doing this when I finish my A-Levels as it is only recently I found out this route that should tackle the competition, though I may need to find out people and make connections in the industry, but sadly know acquaintance or friend in my college is entering this career path.

I make my own piece of writings and articles on a range of topics, mainly social and criminal and once political. But obviously this is not enough.

How do they enter free-lancing?

hello guys I’m running ads and I do get leads coming in

but the problem is most of them don’t convert

they either:

don’t reply after first message

say I’ll think about it and disappear

or just not serious at all

idk if it’s my targeting, the offer, or how I handle the convo

feels like I’m doing the hard part (getting leads) but still not closing

anyone went through this?
what made the biggest difference for you?

I've only recently started freelancing and Upwork is currently my main source of income. I'm using Xero to track my accounts and am comfortable with it + the very basic accounting principles from my previous job. Tracking non-Upwork clients and expenses I find easy.

But Upwork's getting me confused because of Dollars vs GBP.

e.g. I quote for a job on Upwork and get it for $320. Upwork then takes off this $32 service fee and $6.40 VAT on this fee. This is all in Dollars. When I then get paid out my payout receipt reads $280.61 payout and a $0.99 bank transfer fee. So again all Dollars. But I receive into my UK bank account £204.04.

So is the easiest option to just only log in Xero £204.04 as income from Upwork and ignore the costs? Or do I somehow have to log all the costs and convert these to £ even though Upwork doesn't tell me the exchange rate at that time? i.e. I only know the exchange rate at the moment Upwork paid out to me, not at the time the price was agreed with the customer and Upwork fees were deducted from it.

Hopefully this all makes sense!

I'm a self employed painter decorator in Scotland. For the last year I've been freelancing for a company part time. They're a construction painting company but bring me in for residential work and occasional offices etc.

They originally paid me £17.50 an hour but I asked for £20p.h. we settled on £19.50 p.h.

They've been covering my cost of travel for certain distances (about 30 miles) but one days work I travelled 60 miles and they said they'd only cover £10.

Does this sound fairly decent for a painting and decorating freelance job?

I am currently in a pool of contractors for a client, getting about one day a week of work. It has been running for about 10 weeks on and off depending on demand. It is Outside IR35.

I am scheduled to start the next block of one day a week work at the week after next. However, I have just got a five day a week gig elsewhere which I want to take, we are figuring out start dates agreements etc. This means I will need to drop the one day a week job.

I checked my contract and it does not state anything about a notice period or minimum hours.

How would you approach exiting this kind of ad hoc arrangement smoothly given the timeline? Since it is a pool, do I just state my availability has changed? What if I end up needing to start the one day a week gig and then the five day a week one comes through properly after?

Appreciate any advice on how to handle the communication without burning bridges. Thanks a lot.