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Here, Victoria McDonnell, Head of Marketing, at specialist freelancer accountants, Brookson, looks at her personal experience and that of other working mums.
Victoria writes:
As a working mum myself, I was interested to find that an increasing number of working mothers are opting to become freelancers to allow them to achieve a better balance between their professional and personal lives after they have had children according to new figures published.
A new report from Brookson business partner, the Association for Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed (IPSE) and the small business research centre at Kingston University London entitled ‘Exploring the UK freelance workforce in 2015′ found that freelancing is becoming more and more popular among working mums. Given the flexibility working for yourself can bring, this isn’t something I found that surprising.
I caught up with former BBC business presenter and freelancer of 12 years Penny Haslam who agrees, “I’m not surprised at the growing number of opting to go freelance, when the majority of employers are slow to adopt flexible working for everyone. Even if working parents do go part time, they find themselves a stuck and demotivated over time. It’s a real waste of talent."
Interestingly, the research found that there are currently 1.91 million freelancers in the UK in total, with one in seven (287,000) women who have children.
Overall, the number of working mums freelancing increased by 70 per cent between 2008 and 2015. During this time, flexible working hours have become easier to obtain, allowing a growing proportion of women to juggle their careers with their family responsibilities to achieve a healthy work-life balance.
Altogether, 40 per cent of Britain’s freelancers are female, while 60 per cent are male. If you think about the ratio of men to women when it comes to board-level positions, for example, this is much more of an even split than in many disciplines.
The IPSE research also found that the proportion of women working as freelancers in technical positions was surprisingly high given concerns that there are not enough females represented in fields such as IT and engineering. However, 44 per cent of freelance jobs in this area were found to be held by women.
What’s more, 38 per cent of all managerial freelance positions were occupied by women, which dispels myths that freelance roles do not require a high skillset, as some believe.
The rise in female freelancers demonstrates that an increasing number of women are actively taking control of their own working hours, embracing the opportunity to set their own pay rates and make the most of getting the chance to work with the clients and businesses they choose.
I spoke to Tracey Thomas founder of Women’s group, This Lady Loves, who said in recent years she had seen more and more women taking the step into self-employment. “Women are becoming more independent and have skills and experience to succeed in the freelance world” commented Tracey.
“I am all for freelancers, and would encourage anyone to consider it. I much prefer the flexibility of working from my homebased office. The way we do business is changing, people are becoming more open minded and embracing the changes.”
Work/life balance
In fact, a survey carried out by Demos in 2014 led to the discovery that a good work-life balance is more important to women than men, with 69 per cent of females citing this as a priority in comparison to 55 per cent of males.
Speaking to the Guardian at the time, research director at Demos Duncan O’Leary commented: “For parents who want to spend time with their children, self-employment can provide the flexibility to ease back into work in a way that many workplaces do not offer.”
Regarding the challenges of juggling the work-life balance Penny went on to say “being super-organised, establishing some back-up child care options, taking deep breaths and eventually trusting that everything would always be OK, was key to making it work and maintaining my sanity.”
Penny concluded: “There’s no way I’d have the varied career I do, if I hadn’t gone freelance. It’s low-level anxiety about where the next job is coming from, coupled with an amazing freedom and variety I just couldn’t get from being an employee.”
So with a growing number of working mums opting to be freelancers, does this encourage the hiring companies to adapt and evolve to better utilise this section of the UK’s flexible workforce?
I’d love to hear about your views and experiences on this subject.
Victoria McDonnell, Brookson
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Susie Hughes © Shout99 2016
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