By Daniel Hunter
The North East has emerged as one of the best places to be self-employed, with freelancers charging almost 50% more than two years, according to research from Crunch Accounting.
Other fast growing regions include Wales and the South West, where daily rates have increased by 31% and 28% respectively.
The area where one-man companies are charging the most is East Anglia, with workers billing an average of £318 per day.
Meanwhile the worst location to go it alone in business is the North West, where the one-person companies are charging a daily average of £260, £30 less than the national average. Freelancers in the East Midlands are also suffering with fees dropping by 1.3% since 2013.
London’s self-employed have experienced relatively little change with a small 6% increase in fees, despite the rapid rise in business and living costs for the capital.
Darren Fell, CEO of Crunch said: “We sourced this data to better understand how incomes are changing amongst the country’s freelance workforce, and with the data drawing on more than 1.8 million billed freelance days, this provides a definitive rates guide for the one man band businesses.
“It’s great to see business confidence is on the rise amongst the self-employed, a group that historically undervalues their services.
“These figures confirm what we have long understood here at Crunch, that the self-employed are leading the country’s economic recovery and it’s high time they received greater political support and recognition.”
There are approximately 4.6 million self-employed workers in the UK, the highest level since Office of National Statistics records began almost 40 years ago.
