Roles in the Media industry

Freelance

What is freelancing?

A freelancer is someone who doesn’t work for one company full-time, but is hired by different companies for certain jobs they are self-employed and get hired a lot. For example, a magazine or website will have a core team of editors who hire freelance writers to write articles, or a TV production crew might hire freelance cameramen to work on one series of programmes and different kind of programs that is available for them and also they get to earn different kind of pays/wages for what they are willing to do.

What are the advantages of freelancing?Being a freelancer means you don’t have a boss telling you what to do so you can say ‘no’ to jobs you don’t want. You might also get to work at home for specific projects. As long as your work is delivered to the deadline most clients won’t mind how and when you do it – making freelancing a good option for people who don’t want to work normal office hours 9-5. However, the work hours can be long and also they don’t often stay working in one place for a long time.

Freelancers can negotiate their own rates with the companies who hire them. Companies are often prepared to pay freelancers a better rate than their own staff because they don’t have to pay for things like sick leave as part of the contract. The more experience you have then the more money you can ask for.

What are the disadvantages for freelancing?

There are many freelancers in the industry so it may be difficult to get your first job. A lot of people are trying to find jobs so it isn’t enough to just excel at being a freelancer they will know how to network, make contacts with potential clients so that people will know what you do. The workload can vary and be unpredictable as you don’t really know when you could get work and when there is no work.

This means that if there is no work then you will not get a regular paycheck per month. Also, you will also have to make the tax and insurance arrangements yourself. Which will require you to register yourself as ‘self-employed’ with Inland Revenue, who can give you some advice.

As you may not have a regular paycheck, you will need to keep some money saved up for bills and to maintain a good lifestyle especially when you’re sick. You might want a holiday any time you want, depending on if you can afford it as no-one will pay you for it.