Are freelancers the lifeblood of our economy?

If, like me, you work in the Creative Industry you’ll know just how important freelancers are; so imagine if you will, a world without freelancers and all that they bring to our industry.

From Digital Marketers, UX designers, UX researchers, photographers, Creative Directors, Graphic Designers, Screen Skills Directors, dancers, actors, Marketing & PR you’ll understand how they operate and why they function as they do. The industry just operates with them and it works; they bring talent, creativity and ideas that you simply don’t get from a permanent employee; perhaps borne from the uncertainty of it all, their ideas are truly the lifeblood of the industry.

Freelancers take the hit on holiday and sickness pay that a permanently employed person gets. They take the risk of being dropped with little to no notice on a project and they take the hit on being out of work for a period whilst waiting for other work. Yet despite all this, and despite their known importance across the industry they are still seen as the underdog to the wider world. And especially it would seem in the recent Government support following the Covid-19

pandemic. In a recent report by the Creative Industries Federation Andy Harrower, CEO, Directors UK said that the majority of Screen Directors are freelancers and as production halted due to the virus, their work has ceased. With the Creative Industry bringing £111.7 billion to our economy – that’s more than aerospace, automotive, life sciences oil & gas combined [Our World without Culture Report June 2020 Creative Industries Federation] – why are we still overlooking the community of freelancers?

As the Creative Industry has grown over the last 20 years we are now, more than ever able to demonstrate how we have managed to adapt and grow, despite the banking crisis of 2008 and the following global recession. Perhaps now, in the face of another recession that will inevitably follow the Covid pandemic, wider industry will look to us once again to help them respond as their businesses unfold. But in order to do so, they need to ask not ‘what we can do to be more like them’, but ‘what can they do to be more like us?’ There are currently over 2 million Freelancers in the UK.

THE STATS

- For the majority (1.77 million), working on a freelance basis is their main occupation.

- Freelancers are extremely valuable members of the UK economy, currently contributing approximately £125 billion.

Not only do they bring financial value it is their wider breadth of knowledge, creative perspective and a deeper understanding of the creative process that is truly immeasurable. They adapt, and integrate whilst maintaining a holistic view that brings so much to the ecosystem of our Creative Industry.

If you are looking to adapt for the post Pandemic world, then it is this talent that may well help you do so. The beauty of freelancers after all, is they are not headcount and they’d prefer not to be but they are colour and diversity where you may otherwise lack it.

In Coventry & Warwickshire our focus has been supporting freelancers in two ways. Our primary focus has been to develop a programme of networks, collaborations with wider business to increase opportunity and provide freelancers with financial and personal resilience. Our secondary focus has been to shift the understanding at local and national government level, which we’re achieving through reporting and challenging the decision makers of local strategy to really truly understand why freelancers are so vital to our local and national economic picture.

The ecosystem for freelancers is powerful, from OpentoWork.uk, to the amazing help of recruiters in the freelancer industry like Beyond the Book, to Grant fund advisors like Amy Dalton Hardy and us, at Fresh Seed, providing commercial support and training, aswell as amazing books available by Sarah Townsend and Alison Grade, we feel now is the best time to be a freelancer and a great opportunity to share the advantages they offer to the world.