Freelance work is a great option if you’re looking to set your own hours, work from anywhere, or pick up projects that interest you most. We have found some of the highest paid freelance skills based on Upwork, Fiver, and other resources.
You'll want to start off in the proper direction in the job path that produces the maximum revenue if you're just starting out as a freelancer, right?
This is how a lot of aspiring freelancers think. Furthermore, it seems logical.
But the situation is far more convoluted than that. It doesn't always follow that skill is the best to pursue just because it's in higher demand or pays better than the others.
There's a good reason some writers on Fiverr only get paid $5 for a 1,000-word post despite paying $100 for the same work elsewhere.
Your skill level, experience, and output quality all play a role in how much you get paid.
Having said that, it's also crucial to understand your market and determine the professions and talents that pay the highest wages so that you might consider learning a new trade or preparing for a future as a freelancer.
Here are the occupations that pay the most in the freelancing sector for those of you who are interested in earning a consistent income or retiring early.
High-Paying Freelance Jobs
Several freelance jobs are available for professionals in all fields, including technology, design, and writing. Additionally, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to locate a job that matches your skills given the wide variety of career categories available.
Web designer And Development
National average salary: $45,390 per year
Web designers' main responsibilities include planning, developing, and writing the code for websites and web pages that include text, photos, graphics, sound, and video. Designers are in charge of organising a website's overall layout and frequently collaborate with several clients over time to update websites, make backup files, fix coding problems, and edit and produce content.
Web designers are in high demand. However, it's important to keep in mind that the freelance web design market is currently quite crowded because it's simple to learn web design and begin coding websites. Heck, I even created my own web design company after working briefly in the field. Warning: This sentence contains a spoiler. Not so good.
Finding a niche in the market would be the best course of action. For instance, Jonathan Wold generated over $5,000 per month by using WordPress to create websites and making minor theme modifications. If you provide the correct services to the right clients, you'll probably be able to make more money.
Software Developer
National average salary: $47,714 per year
Primary responsibilities: Like designers and writers, computer programmers who work as independent contractors frequently have several clients. To meet the needs of their clients, these specialists create computer software and apps and provide recommendations.
Graphic designer
National average salary: $48,920 per year
Primary responsibilities: Graphic designers collaborate with a range of clients to create visual concepts utilising paper sketches or computer tools. These visual ideas are used by graphic designers to produce the overall look and feel of a variety of commercial applications, such as advertisements, visual reports, and magazines.
The second most in-demand skill according to UpWork is graphic design. You can find some freelancers who earn up to $85 per hour doing design work if you check at its top freelancers in the graphic design area.
Nowadays, there is a greater demand for infographic design. Illustrations, logo design, and icon design all have good pay rates. But just like with content writing, you'll need to develop a sense of design if you want to become a good graphic designer.
Social Video Marketing
National average salary: $54,262 per year
Primary responsibilities: By analysing market data that offers insight into what customers purchase, where gaps exist within an organization's target market, what types of products or services sell most frequently, and how much customers typically spend on a purchase, marketing specialists help organisations understand what reaches customers successfully. All of these data pieces assist marketing experts and their clients in creating the greatest possible products for customers.
It's not surprising that there is a strong demand for this skill. particularly in light of the expansion of video content marketing. This ability will remain relevant for years to come thanks to the thriving social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram video, and YouTube.
If you're good at making videos, optimising them for SEO, and engaging audiences with novel concepts and marketing techniques, this talent will help you land lots of gigs.
Amazon Virtual assistant (VA)
National average salary: $56,860 per year
Primary duties: Virtual assistants offer administrative services to their clients remotely, usually from a home office. These professionals typically schedule appointments, take phone calls, make travel arrangements and manage emails and other online messages for their clients.
Content Writer
National average salary: $60,068 per year
Primary responsibilities: Freelancers can work on a contract basis with companies and organisations as well as with one or more clients at a time. For books, websites, journals, news pieces, product descriptions, ads, and magazines, writers will produce the written content.
You don't have to look to find evidence of the success of independent writers. I'll be a good example. I currently earn about $5,000 per month (at least most months) from writing, content marketing, and business blogging. And I'm aware that some independent authors fare better than I do.
However, not everyone has the ability to write well. To write fantastic articles that pay handsomely, you must read a lot, write a lot, and, most importantly, have a creative mind. Your literary master's degree and your college's A+ essay writing abilities are useless when working online.
Video Editor
National average salary: $77,008 per year
Primary duties: A freelance videographer uses video recording equipment to capture footage of live events and video production projects. Many freelance videographers focus on smaller productions for their clients, including projects like documentaries, short films, weddings and parties, live events, training videos and even legal depositions.
In the US, independent video editors make about $72,000 annually, while more seasoned editors make about $122,000.
Due to the opportunities provided by websites like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, there has been an increase in the need for freelance video editors in recent years.
This could be a terrific future-proof career to get into if you're strong at putting together video clips and making awesome video content.