Hi Reader,

Happy Friday!

I've created a new tool this week for the first cohort of The Hello Effect to help them track their networking efforts.

The program is almost ready for its second intake, so I'll be opening doors again in September for a limited number of folk (I took on 15 in the first cohort, but I might reduce to 10 next time).

If you're interested, make sure you're on the waitlist as I'll only be launching it there to save overwhelming peeps who don't want to hear about it.

P.S. In my latest Instagram post, I share how I find consistent freelance work these days (spoiler: it's not cold pitching). Check it out here. And don't forget to give me a follow for regular tips and tricks!

Here's what I've been up to this week work-wise:

👉 I refreshed 3 pieces for Shopify

👉 I wrote 1 piece for a new client

👉 I ran edits on a piece for a new client

👉 I wrote a draft for The Art of Content blog

👉 I wrote some LinkedIn blurbs based on a positioning doc for a client

👉 I landed a new client that I start working with next week

👉 I went to Founderland (by Happy Freelancers)

👉 I created 2 new tools for freelancers (watch this space)

⏱ Approx hours spent on client work this week: ~21

⏱ Approx hours spent on non-client work: ~4

💰 Total revenue this week: £2,300

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Friday Freelance Tip​​ ✨ ​

We're six months into the year, so let's do the thing I do every July: pull up a chair and talk about how it's all going.

How the first half of the year went

January through March was slim for me. Pretty shaky, really. I had weeks with no new work and lost a few clients along the way to either budget cuts or them taking my role in-house. I spent a lot of the first quarter wondering if the gravy train had finally dried up (something I do at least 1-2 times a year).

Then March hit and work picked up hard. I had an influx of new enquiries and started working with 3 new clients in April. By June I was busier than I've been in a while and it felt GOOD.

I do want to be careful here, though, because I know that's not everyone's story. Some of you had the opposite year with a strong start and a quiet middle. Some of you are still waiting for the March-style turnaround. If that's you, I see it, and none of this is meant to imply that things are fine across the board, because they absolutely aren't.

Even with more work on my plate than I've had in months, this is the most unstable I've felt in twelve years of freelancing.

When I say unstable here, I don't mean unstable in sense of not having enough to do, but more in the sense of not being able to trust it. Every project feels like it could be the last one for a while, so instead of building anything, I'm just picking up whatever's next and basically treading water.

A lot of you have said the same thing to me directly... that it feels a lot like your limping from one contract to the next right now.

Planning ahead has gotten difficult too, because we have no idea where the industry will be in 3 months, let alone 6 months or a year.

This uncertainty is changing how we all work: we're investing less in our businesses, we're avoiding saying no to bad-fit projects, and we're saying yes to anything that pays.

What the next six months are looking like

The signs I'm getting from clients right now is confusing, and I don't think it's just me.

Enquiries are up compared to earlier in the year, but turning an enquiry into an actual signed, paid project has got harder.

The pattern a lot of us are seeing goes something like this: a client reaches out enthusiastic, the first call goes well, and then over the following week or two they either go quiet, the scope shifts, the budget shrinks, or the client vanishes entirely. Getting a project off the ground feels much harder than finding leads in the first place.

This tracks with what's showing up in the platform data too.

GigRadar's analysis of Upwork proposal activity found the platform's active client base shrank 6% in 2025 and stayed flat-to-down into Q1 2026, even as total spending on the platform held roughly steady (basically, fewer buyers are doing more hiring, and the ones left are pickier).

And IPSE's research into the self-employed workforce has repeatedly flagged that roughly three-quarters of freelancers haven't been able to raise their day rates in the past year, even as costs keep climbing.

What's the rest of 2026 look like? 🫣

A few things worth watching as we head into the second half:

AI fluency is table stakes.

Upwork's In-Demand Skills 2026 report found that demand for skills explicitly tied to AI grew 109% year over year, with AI video work up 329% and AI integration work up 178%.

But the same report found demand for the traditional core categories (like coding, creative, marketing, admin) stayed just as strong.

What I'm taking from this isn't that AI is replacing freelancers, but that clients increasingly expect the freelancers they already hire to fold AI into how they work.

Clients want fractional help.

In the same research, 77% of business leaders told Upwork that AI is pushing them toward specialised, part-time talent rather than full-time hires or broad-scope engagements.

That lines up with what a lot of us are already seeing... smaller, more defined chunks of work rather than the bigger open-ended contracts that used to be normal.

The independent workforce is growing, but the growth is uneven.

MBO Partners' 2025 State of Independence study put the US independent workforce at 72.9 million, up only slightly on the year before, with almost all of that growth coming from people freelancing occasionally rather than full-time.

Meanwhile the number of six-figure independents grew nearly 19%. Translation: the middle is getting squeezed while the very top and the very casual both grow. If you're a full-time freelancer sitting in that middle, that's exactly where the ground feels least stable, and it explains why more competition doesn't necessarily mean more work for any one person.

Rates are still lagging costs.

IPSE's tracking of UK freelancers has shown day rates barely moving over the past year while the majority of freelancers expect their business costs to keep rising. Don't expect that pressure to ease going into 2027... if anything, budget conversations with clients are likely to get more pointed (urgh).

None of this is a tidy story with a clean takeaway, and I'm not going to pretend it is. Busier doesn't always mean safer, more enquiries doesn't mean more signed work, and the industry-wide picture is really mixed depending on where you sit in it.

If you've got a read on how your own six months have gone, or what you're bracing for in the second half, hit reply, I'd love to hear your experience.

As always, happy freelancing 🙂

Lizzie ✨

This week, we have a B2B and B2C writer from England.

Where are you based? North Yorkshire, England.

How long have you been freelancing? 3.5 years.

What do you do? Writing for B2B and B2C brands (no niche).

What's your revenue? £22,500.

This person freelances part-time and this was their highest earning year.

How much did you take as a salary?

£16,500 - I’ve been building up a bit of a cushion in my business account for quiet months, I also live quite frugally!

How much did you pay in taxes?

£485 last year.

What are your business expenses?

£150 approximately, inc. accountant fee & subscriptions and annual business insurance which was £180.
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Do you contribute to a pension or invest?

What I pay into my pension averages about £50 a month, I need to up this ideally to £100.

Any personal money-management or cash flow tip you'd like to share with others?

I try to keep 35% of each invoice paid aside for tax, NI and other expenses and try to be sensible in keeping my monthly personal salary in the same sort of area (so if I’m paid more one month, I don’t go wild and pay myself a big amount; it stays in the bank and helps build up that cushion to rely on in quieter months).

We need more Freelance Money Diaries entries! I'm forever grateful to anyone who shares their finances with us (you can do it totally anonymously!).

Click the button below to do yours!

As always, happy freelancing :)

Lizzie ✨

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