2014 Freelance Rates results: what people charge

It’s been a few months since we opened up last year’s survey to look at Freelance rates working in the web industry. This is the fourth year running the survey and each year the survey has expanded to find out more about what freelancers in the UK charge, how they work and ultimately how their work affects them. Many people work freelance as a lifestyle choice so am particularly interested in if this leads to a healthy work/life balance.

In this first of three blog posts we will look at what people charge and how this varies across various factors.

This post is supported by a fantastic interactive data-visualisation from Peter Cook looking at the responses.

Additionally we have updated the freelance rates calculator to help people know how they rates compare to others with similar skills and experience.

Methodology

As with previous years, average values are taken from the Median value across our responses. Note that this year for the first time we asked people for their hourly rates as well as day rates but for the purpose of consistency this analysis will only consider day rates.

Day rates by Location

Overall rates across the UK were consistent with last year with some variability across the UK. For the first time since our survey started, average rates have not seen an increase staying at £290/day. Unsurprisingly, freelancers in London and the South East commanded the highest rates whilst Yorkshire, the North East and Northern Ireland the lowest. Interestingly the regions with the highest rates had also generally seen the largest rises in day rates whilst those with lower rates had seen the largest fall. London, for example has seen a 7.69% rise in day rates whilst somewhat sadly Northern Ireland has seen a 28.5% fall in day rates.

Region	Count	Min	Max	Average	2013	+/-	2012	+/-	2011	+/-
East Midlands	16	42	800	307.5	300	7.5	275	32.5	300	7.5
East of England	26	80	550	300	300	0	300	0	250	50
London	137	40	1200	350	325	25	337.50	12.5	350	0
North East	18	80	500	215	240	–25	245	–30	275	–60
North West	41	38	570	300	267.50	32.5	261.25	38.75	250	50
Northern Ireland	9	75	480	200	280	–80	262.50	–62.5	270	–70
Scotland	46	50	600	310	280	30	290	20	280	30
South East	102	75	750	320	300	20	280	40	300	20
South West	89	50	750	280	300	–20	250	30	258	22
Wales	21	50	700	262.5	252	10.5	250	12.5	275	–12.5
West Midlands	32	80	1200	280	300	–20	290	–10	337.50	–57.5
Yorkshire & The Humber	26	50	800	255	280	–25	287.50	–32.5	250	5

Day rates by Age

It is no surprise that on average the older the person the higher the day rate. However there is a much greater disparity in what freelancers are earning, with younger freelancers (24 and under) rates going down considerably whilst older freelancers (35 and over) rates have gone up.

Age	Count	Average	2013	+/-	2012	+/-	2011	+/-
15–19	13	150	225	–75	280	–130	140	10
20–24	64	240	250	–10	250	–10	225	15
25–29	154	280	280	0	280	0	250	30
30–34	133	300	300	0	290	10	300	0
35–39	102	325	300	25	317.50	7.5	300	25
40–44	64	367.5	325	42.5	320	47.5	325	42.5
45+	28	337.5	300	37.5	325	12.5	425	–87.5

Day rates by skill set

Day rates for developers and generalists (those working across a mixture of disciplines) tend to have gone up but the day rate for designers has gone down on average by £35/day. Back-end developer have the highest day rates whilst designers have the lowest.

Skill	Count	Average	2013	+/-	2012	+/-	2011	+/-
Design	268	265	300	–35	262	3	300	–35
Back-end dev	210	342.5	322.50	20	300	42.5	280	62.5
Front-end dev	373	300	265	35	275	25	280	20
Mixture	276	290	280	10	280	10	300	–10

Day rate by years experience

Unsurprisingly, rates increase with years experience ranging from £140/day with a year or less experience to £362.5/day for those with 18 or more years experience. With a couple of exceptions rates are generally going up.

Years Experience	Count	Average	2013	+/-	2012	+/-	2011	+/-
0–1	28	140	135	5	160	–20	200	–60
2–3	78	200	225	–25	245	–45	200	0
4–5	86	250	275	–25	262.50	–12.5	250	0
6–7	98	300	290	10	255	45	300	0
8–9	61	350	300	50	280	70	275	75
10–11	76	350	300	50	300	50	300	50
12–13	36	349	300	49	300	49	320	29
14–15	55	375	437.50	–62.5	350	25	250	125
16–17	28	360	320	40	340	20	372.50	–12.5
18+	15	362.5	375	–12.5	387.50	–25	475	–112.5

How we bill

If we look at how people charge for work then we can see that there is a pretty even split between those that bill per day, those that bill per hour and those that bill per project.

Billing	Count	%
By the day	171	30.59
By the project	136	24.33
By the hour	123	22.00
Varies per project	85	15.21
By the month	25	4.47
By the week	19	3.40

Deposits and Contracts

Worryingly, the majority of respondents (43%) still don’t ask for a deposit before starting work on a project whilst 33% ask for 25-50% of project value up front. 38% of respondents don’t use a contract.

Deposit	Count	%
None	239	42.83
25–50% of project value	185	33.15
10–25% of project value	70	12.54
50%+ of project value	37	6.63
0–10% of project value	16	2.87
Yes, a fixed amount	11	1.97

Contract?	Count	%
Yes	344	61.65
No	214	38.35

Project Value

40% of Freelancers had an average project value of less than £2000, 28% between £2000 and £5000 whilst 30% had an average project value over £5000.

Project Value	Count	%
£0–1000	111	20.2
£1001–2000	113	20.5
£2001–3000	74	13.5
£3001–4000	45	8.2
£4001–5000	39	7.1
£5000–10,000	84	15.3
£10,000+	84	15.3

The data from the survey is freely available as a CSV. This data is available under a Creative Commons Attribution license. If you want to build your own data-visualisation or tools based on this data you are free to do so but please link to the source and provide a link in the comments below.

Remember to check out Peter Cook's brilliant interactive data-visualisation, and our updated freelance rates calculator.

And join us next week where we will look at how Freelancers work in our industry.