Freelancing in Future (2020)

Freelancing without any doubt will play a vital role in the future of job markets. Studies conducted by Upwork and the Freelancers Union show that in the past few years the number of Americans which took on a freelance work rose from 53 million to 57 million which is 36% of the US workforce with an annual contribution of $1.4 trillion of freelance earnings to the country’s economy.  

 The reports suggest that this trend will even increase within a decade and freelancers will outnumber non-freelancer workers 86.5 million to 83.4 million by 2027 and some analysts cite that 80% of the global workforce will be freelancers by 2030. There are apparently many reasons behind this shift. Greater freedom, flexibility, additional income is only some of those factors. And because more and more professionals started to join this shift, freelancing has become respected than ever. Another factor contributing to this growth in freelancing is concerns over the changing economy. Many American workers nowadays worry that their job will no longer exist in the near 20 years. Unsurprisingly, millennials consist 47% of freelance workers and 55% of them admit their concerns about the possible impacts of the changing economy on their lives.

But while more and more workers prefer being their own boss and sting their own work hours on outdated workplaces, long commutes and the nine-to-five grind for the freedom, it is the fact that not everyone will follow this path.

Even though the number of traditionally employed workers are on the decline, it doesn’t mean that this model is going to vanish entirely. After all, not everyone wants to freelance, and not everyone who wishes to become a freelancer has the temperament or the skills to be successful in that. 

With that in mind, there are 4 key criteria that the freelancers of the future need to possess to be successful and stay competitive.

1. A SPECIALIZED SKILL SET

Some have argued that nowadays high-skilled workers have the dominance in the freelance economy, but specialization is more likely to win the day.  It is indeed a matter of supply and demand: The more specialized your skills, the rarer they will be, and the more people will pay for those skills. On the contrary, easy-to-learn skills with low barriers of entry to training which hundreds of thousands of people can get from online courses are already threatened by artificial intelligence and automation.

2. HIGH DEMAND SKILLS, TODAY AND TOMORROW 

This, of course, is closely related to specialization, but the critical added variable is time; skills that are in demand today will not be tomorrow.

So forget what you’ve heard about the supposed risks of “job hopping.” That may lose you points in a corporate recruiter’s playbook, but if you’re comfortable moving quickly from one job to another, you might have an easier time staying up to date in the freelance economy–by picking up new experience and skills with each different project.

This is not automatically great news for millennials and Gen-Z, though, who are not actually changing jobs more swiftly than prior generations, but it does represent an opportunity for anybody who can grow accustomed to regularly renewing their expertise. Indeed, it seems that today’s freelancers have already learned this lesson. Studies found that current freelancers are already skilling up more swiftly than their traditionally employed counterparts.

This kind of professional development should be a regular and continues habit of the future freelancers. It is like: We still use word processing software, but you would never list “Microsoft Office” on your resume in 2018. Likewise, “social media expert” will not exist in 10 years, so it is crucial to build off the skills you already have and regularly reinvent yourself. A designer 5 years ago is still a designer today, but instead of designing just for the web, she is now designing for mobile or even augmented reality.

3. A “SOLOPRENEURIAL” MIND-SET

Becoming a freelancer is a lot something like running a business, except that now you are the startup. Like any good business model, your goal is to build a long-term productive company that is stable, steady, and not particularly risky to run. So it is necessary to think like a “solopreneur,” rather than someone randomly picking up one gig, and then the other one, and then the other one. Successful freelancers understand how to use their abilities to get things done. Ideally, they are selective and strategic about the work they do. But while technology can help you market yourself to potential clients, things can get pretty frustrating if you are not passionate and cannot handle the inevitable self-promotion and salesmanship which takes to pitch yourself and grow a client base. Drive and determination indeed are vital, and not everyone has it in them. And there are no shortcuts.

4. HIGH-LEVEL EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE 

There is a reason why we continue hearing about the importance of so-called “soft skills” such as emotional intelligence in discussions about the future of jobs. But that does not just go for traditional employment, where you are more likely to interact with co-workers in an office environment.

Sure, technical skills that are measurable and tangible, like preparing tax documents or installing software, are part of what goes into every successful freelancer’s specialized portfolio. But interpersonal abilities–like getting along with others, communication, empathy and active listening –are just as essential when you work for yourself. That is because the way you communicate with the client you are selling to determines the strength–and potential lucrativeness–of the working relationship over the long haul.

For anyone who is ready to put out their freelance shingle and say goodbye to traditional employment, you are about to face surging opportunities–just as long as you can check these 4 boxes confidently. If you can’t, though, do not worry. According to the part of surveyed freelancers who are often over-worked, under-valued and forced to compete for low-paid, low-skill tasks on a variety of online middlemen marketplace platforms which exploit workers for profits freelancing may be a booming market, yet it is not all of our fates.