The future is bright, the future is freelancing

In its ongoing quest to lead the freelancing debate, Brookson, one of the leading providers of accountancy, tax advice and support services to contractors, this week secured a meeting of minds with some of the most industry’s influential people to shed some light on the challenging issue of the ‘Future of Freelancing’.

The roundtable, chaired by managing director of Brookson, Martin Hesketh, included, Andrew Miller MP, John Brazier managing director of PCG, Marilyn Davidson director of APSCo, Susie Hughes, owner and editor of Shout99 and Laurie Payne, north London branch chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).

The ‘no holes barred’ discussion invited attendees to offer insight and share best practice recommendations on some of the biggest opportunities and threats facing self employed professionals today, namely:

• Lack of government understanding
• The impact of the recession
• The importance of freelancers to the economy’s recovery
• The role of technology
• Sector comparisons 
• The definition debate – the current lack of industry definitions and differentiations surrounding self-employed professional workers and lower skilled temporary workers

Martin Hesketh commented: “Despite a surge in the last 20 years or so, freelancing is still a relatively new model of working and as such, is changing and evolving with increasing speed. In light of the current unstable economic landscape and ongoing debate around existing and proposed legislation, we thought it was important to bring the industry together to review how the future of our industry is currently being affected and shaped.

“The future, it seems, does appear bright for self-employed professionals. Granted, there are some hurdles still to overcome, not least of which is the argument around categorisation of types of freelance worker and the one size fits all approach to industry imposed legislation. However, our discussion highlighted a number of promising developments which would indicate, that with the right support, the freelancing market will continue to recover, grow and expand in years to come.

“Perhaps surprisingly, engineering appears to be the most robust sector within the market place. In September this year, the number of contracts in this sector shot up by around 40 per cent*, yet IT has not followed suit.

“The discussion also highlighted some interesting points around age polarisation within the freelancing market, in terms of a greater number of freelancers from the graduate generation and older generations. For graduates, this was attributed to an increase in exposure to successful entrepreneurship. For the older generations, an increase in redundancies coupled with a desire to extend working life timescales, has led to a growing number of freelancers from this age group.”

The Round Table discussion also steered towards a focus on the impact of technology on the freelancing market with some equally interesting feedback.

Speaking on the subject, Laurie Payne, commented: “Improvements in technology are directly related to the number of young people starting up in business of their own accord. The instant availability to online tools and advice around business start ups is encouraging more and more individuals to pursue their personal business goals, as opposed to seeking full time employment within an existing organisation.

Martin Hesketh continued: “There was also a consensus around the table that technology had provided a positive environmental impact and substantial improvements in the work-life balance of freelancers, offering the freedom to work remotely and outside of the often restrictive nine to five working day.”

He added: “Andrew Miller MP acknowledged the difficulty surrounding the lack of definitions within the freelancing market. He also agreed the need for a more detailed yet clear framework to reduce the frustrations currently being experienced by self-employed professionals who are frequently ‘tarred with the same brush’ as lower skilled temporary workers. However, disappointingly, he did confirm the solution to this ongoing issue is still far from resolution as far as the government is concerned.”

During the coming weeks, Brookson will be providing more in-depth analysis on the roundtable discussion in order to share the best practice and views on the future of freelancing within the wider marketplace.