r/freelanceuk

Hi everyone

I was recently made redundant from my role back at the end of March. I've been looking for roles in my field as a telecoms sales engineer but the market looks to be pretty tough right now so not getting a lot of traction at the moment.

The outplacement company I was referred to sign up for post redundancy has some suggested paths and one of them is freelancing, contracting and consulting.

I've been thinking if this is something I should pursue, freelancing question specifically for this community or am I better off focusing my efforts on finding a corporate role?

I would really like to upskill in a few tools such as Go Highlevel, a highly requested platform used by marketing teams. Normally I would access a free or cheap account and click around and learn that way, but the starter package is very expensive. Not sure how to grow and gain this experience. Any suggestions?

I'm finding it really hard to keep myself focused on work at the moment.

I'm endlessly distracted by my phone, doing other things around the house (my laundry is almost always done before my client work), or just procrastinating.

(The irony I'm reading reddit now is not lost on me)

I've never really been one for things like pomodoro, but want to give it a go.

What works for you? What techniques have you used to keep yourself focused and on task?

Hi, I am looking for some helpful tips/advice from anyone that frequently uses co working spaces. I am setting up an in-person coaching business as a side hustle, but I need to find some office space to use (for the moment only on weekends). Is anyone familiar with places in London that offer this kind of service? I've looked around online and seen wework/regus/FORA so far, but it doesn't seem like office spaces are bookable over the weekend. Any help, suggestions and ideas are welcome! Thank you 😄

I’ve been freelancing for a bit and I’m trying to figure out how people actually manage client follow-ups and keeping track of everything.

Right now my system is kind of a mess:

• messages in email / WhatsApp
• some notes in Notion
• random reminders I forget to check
• and sometimes just… memory

The main issues I keep running into are:

• forgetting to follow up with clients
• losing track of who replied and who didn’t
• not knowing who owes what at any given time
• switching between too many tools just to get a clear picture

I’ve tried Notion setups and simple CRMs before, but they either:

• take too much effort to maintain
• or end up becoming another thing I ignore

So I’m curious how others are handling this in practice.

Do you actually have a system that works consistently?
Or is it more like juggling tools + memory like I am?

Would love to hear how you’re managing it day to day.

Hey everyone,

I’m fairly new to freelancing (less than a year) and I'm a freelance project manager (creative operations) and I had a question about something that keeps coming up with clients.

A lot of agency contracts I see (usually 1-3 months+) still require freelancers to be in the office 2-3 days a week. I feel like this takes away a lot of the flexibility that freelancing is supposed to offer.

Is this actually normal / expected in the UK freelance market now, or is there usually room to push back on it and stay fully remote?

Thank you :)

Curious if other people notice patterns like this with long-term customers.

We’ve had a few accounts over the years where things slowly started feeling “off” operationally before any major issue became obvious.

Communication got slower, approvals took longer, routine admin became strangely difficult, timelines became less clear, etc.

Sometimes it turned out to be temporary internal reshuffling, sometimes not.

Interested whether experienced account managers/owners have learned to treat those kinds of changes as meaningful signals or just normal business noise.

I have built maybe ~10 products in the last 2 years, some were scrapped, some have hundreds of users and some have paying users.

I don't even read the code, I just use AI, e.g. Claude Code, to write it. I do understand the concepts of software programming, I took a 9 week data science & AI (coding) bootcamp and then just started building since then. I can do basic Python programming, but don't do it currently.

I have built many products, integrating language models, image recognition, chatbots, and have built web apps and mobile applications.

I'm in my 30's, before this I worked as a mechanical engineer doing product development and then as a business development manager for a few years. I am pretty smart (not being arrogant), I understand business well and risks. None of the products that I've personally made are high risk, i.e. they're tracker tools for people or analysis tools.

I don't read the code because honestly for the products I'm building I don't need to. I have tests setup in my applications and I use Sentry to alert for any issues and solve them quickly. I build myself dashboards to monitor response times and rates of APIs and functionalities.

So, my question is, is there anything stopping me from building automations and products for other people?

The only territory that I haven't got into is supporting, say, thousands of concurrent users, but I'm obviously going to either learn that if I get to that stage or worst case pay for the services of someone else to audit the code etc.

The aspects of the code that I do understand now are high level, like how to structure an application, which packages to use, how to make apps run efficiently and keep costs down, using workers etc. I obviously have a broad knowledge of how to build a product from scratch to a live product with paying users.

Hi all, wondering if you could help.

I'm currently doing my Master's after spending 3 years as a software developer (fully employed at two different companies during that time).

I'm now on my summer break until mid July and need to earn some cash, and I figure I'll be better off putting my experience to good use rather than trying to go down the retail/hospitality route.

How feasible is it for me to do freelance software/web dev work for a short period like this? Are there any platforms that specialise in these kind of shorter term contracts? This would be my first time freelancing.

I created an account with Upwork yesterday, but the service seems kind of enshittified to me. I'm fine with them taking a cut of what I earn, but also having to pay a subscription just to bid on jobs before I earn a penny seems like a red flag to me. Also, everything being in USD is a bit off-putting.

Any feedback would be appreciated. Cheers.

I’m on a look out for a freelancer for social media, and I was just wondering if you could help me with approximate rates that I can set aside the budget ard now and then we can go and for?

The scope of what I am a looking for:
- finalising the strategy
- scripting, filming (potential travel around London to capture content, TBC) and editing videos for TikTok & Instagram (2-3x a week) & posting
- static posts (1-2x a week) & posting

And anything else that I’ve might’ve missed.

It’s a new business in tourism sector, with no social media presence. The website is currently running just on SEO, but I am looking to expand to social media. I

Initially I’ll be looking to commit to 2-3 months to work with someone, with a possibility to extend.

What kind of monthly rates do people charge for this, that I know to set budget aside for it? This is not a job ad, I’ve already have some people in mind, but just that I am aware of a budget that I can pay people fairly.

Has anyone found tools that help with the MTD regulation? i’m finding it difficult to keep track of everything and want to find a tool that helps but haven’t found anything i REALLYYYYY love.

been self employed for a few years now and my accountant has been nudging me to sort out my mtd setup properly before it becomes an issue. currently on sage but honestly i only use a fraction of what it does and the cost feels hard to justify for what is essentially just me filing vat returns and keeping basic records.

been reading about bridging software as a middle ground because i don't really want to migrate everything if i can just connect what i already have to hmrc directly. not sure if that's actually the right call for a sole trader or if it creates more hassle down the line than just switching to something built for mtd properly from the start. would love to hear from anyone in a similar setup who has gone through this decision and whether bridging worked out or if they ended up switching anyway.

Hi guys, so I do freelance-style work online for a contractor but they pay me in USD to paypal, and that is the only payment method. Obviously my day-to-day is in GBP and if I want to withdraw to a bank account then PayPal burns me with high fees for conversions and other things.

I have tried looking into ways I can withdraw to a USD bank account and then convert from there like a wise account. But I am not sure how to get it setup with Paypal.

Does anyone know a way to do it so I can keep more of the money I make?
Neither the app or the website gives me an option to add a USD bank account and PayPal help services said they couldn't do it either.

Hi everyone

I'm a long-standing sole-trader working in the UK.

For 2023/24 my total turnover was over £90,000.

I received a letter from HMRC stating that my total turnover for the period was 'over the VAT registration threshold' and that I need to register for VAT. That's true of my total turnover, but almost all my sales (design services) were to a non UK company. As I understand it, this doesn't count towards the threshold.

At no point has my VAT taxable turnover exceeded £90,000 within a given 12-month period.

The letter doesn't say what to do in this situation, but is instead mildly threatening – explaining that I need to pay any VAT owed (none) and a penalty, and that if I don't register when I need to (which as far as I can tell, I don't) I'll incur further penalty charges.

Having done a bit of research, I've spent the morning trying to register as 'VAT exempt' but in order to do that it seems you must first register for VAT, which I don't want to do and don't need to do. The process isn't as simple as it could be.

All I want to do is contact HMRC and tell them that my taxable turnover has not exceeded the threshold, but I don't want to waste a morning on the phone.

Can I just ignore this, as it doesn't apply to me?

Thanks for any help.

Not sure if it is just me but client work has been really inconsistent lately.I had two regular clients slow down at the same time, so I started paying more attention to smaller income sources outside direct freelance work. Nothing huge, but enough to make quieter weeks less stressful.What surprised me most is how random traffic and audience location can affect earnings online. One month things look decent, then suddenly RPM drops even though traffic stays similar.

Curious how other freelancers are handling the slower periods recently.

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ok so i have a client has an invoice 45 days overdue, second onejust went out, active project still in progress and work is good, relationship is fine on the surface, but payment keeps slipping.

The awkward part for me do I keep going and risk more exposure or pause and risk damaging the relationship? Right now I just go on gut feel and hope it resolves itself.

The worst part is I actually like this client. That's what makes it hard.

it's confusing. how do you actually make this call? Do you have a threshold? Does someone specific make that decision? Has pausing work ever saved you or cost you a client?