Freelancing Outlook: 2020
As one of the leading platforms for connecting freelancers with gigs, Upwork has vested interested in staying on top of industry trends.
Each year since 2014 Upwork has published the results of their Freelancing in America survey that provides an incredible amount of information about the state of freelancing and its growth.
They also publish The Upwork 100 as a quarterly index of the most in-demand skills and associated trends.
Top takeaways
Whether you call it freelancing, self-employment, independent work, or gig work the trend is clearly up and to the right.
Most of the work is being completed on behalf of US based businesses.
The average independent professional is making way over minimum wage even accounting for self employment taxes.
A lot of the US workforce is participating in independent work whether part or full-time.
Major US companies are contracting independent professionals through Upwork.
Major industries of all kinds are contracting independent professionals.
Learn more about freelancing
The Upwork 100: Q3 2019
.NET Core
TypeScript
Landing pages
eBooks
Android
Electronic design
Presentation
Sketch
Research
Technical recruiter
Bank reconciliation
Slack
Google Tag Manager
Sourcing
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Video post-editing
LinkedIn recruiting
Data visualization
Interviewing
Interior design
System administration
Kubernetes
Data scraping
Technical documentation
Project scheduling