These Are The Top Paying Skills For Freelancers And Independent Consultants Now

Let’s start with the big message: according to a new Upwork survey of the top paying freelance work categories, some independent professionals are earning more than $200 an hour which equates to an annual pre-tax pay package of well above $200,000 USD if working slightly more than half-time (which isn’t bad for a freelancer).

More importantly, that level of compensation is available to top freelancers for work in a wide number of professional categories including legal, tech, finance and marketing.

There are a few reasons to take this list seriously. First, among many in the staffing field, there’s a misconception that independent workers can’t make good money. But, skilled and credentialed independent professionals aren’t in the same position as gigsters cobbling together multiple gigs through Task Rabbit and Uber. In fact, 73% of full-time freelancers say they earn more now than they did as a traditional employee.

Second, while freelancers in some areas do exceedingly well, it’s because they do more than sharpen their professional axe. These are individuals who understand that freelancing is a business, and they are entrepreneurs or, as I like to call them, “solopreneurs.” They are successful because they focus on the right skills, stay up to date, network extensively and actively market themselves. In fact, Upwork found that 70% of full-time freelancers invested in skills training vs. 49% of full-time employees.

Third, freelancing is an expanding opportunity set. As the Upwork data indicates, and as I’ve written in other Forbes posts, freelancing is equal opportunity career alternative that incorporates professional area like law, tech, finance and marketing, but also medicine, science music, and a fast growing range of skills.

As Upwork Chief Economist Adam Ozimek put it: “These data illustrate that work of a very high skilled nature is being done by professionals on Upwork. Highly-paid skills aren’t just anecdotes or limited to one field. They range from law to marketing to finance to high tech, and a significant percentage of U.S. freelancers earn quite high hourly wages on the platform.”

So, what are the big ticket areas of expertise? Upwork has compiled three lists:

• The highest-paying skills across all categories
• The highest paying skills in tech
• The highest paying skills in marketing

Top Upwork skills and their average hourly rates:

1. Legal entity structuring – $255
2. Blackline – $220
3. Bitcoin – $215
4. International Accounting Standards – $215
5. Software licensing – $200
6. Applied Behavioral Analysis – $195
7. Behavioral design – $195
8. Trade law – $185
9. Image object recognition – $180
10. Trademark consulting – $180
11. Due diligence – $180
12. Virtual machine – $175
13. Property and equipment leases – $175
14. SQR – $170
15. S Corporation – $170
16. Patents – $170
17. IT strategy – $165
18. C Corporation – $165
19. Lucene search – $165
20. Orcad – $165

Top tech skills and their average hourly rates:

1. Bitcoin – $215
2. Image object recognition – $180
3. Virtual machine – $175
4. SQR – $170
5. Lucene search – $165
6. OrCAD – $165
7. P-CAD – $165
8. Clustering – $165
9. DHTML – $150
10. SAP CPI – $150
11. Google Adsense API – $150
12. Oracle Integration Cloud – $145
13. Dell Boomi – $140
14. Google Experiments – $140
15. VWO – $140
16. Virtualization – $135
17. Backup administration – $135
18. Open CV – $135
19. Expression engine – $130
20. Systems development – $125

Top marketing skills and their average hourly rate:

1. Behavioral design – $195
2. Event photography – $150
3. Lead magnet – $150
4. Paid social – $145
5. Hotjar – $130
6. Scenario planning – $125
7. Innovation strategy – $125
8. Citrix / GoToMeeting – $125
9. Pricing strategy consulting – $115
10. Video processing – $110
11. Executive coaching – $105
12. DoubleClick Bid Manager – $105
13. Pitch deck – $105
14. Venture capital consulting – $100
15. Social listening – $100
16. Partnerships – $100
17. Food photography – $95
18. Facebook ads – $95
19. DoubleClick for Publishers – $95
20. Marketo – $90

Note: These data were sourced from the Upwork database and based on average hourly rates charged by U.S. freelancers from Jan 1, 2019 – June 30, 2019. Each skill had a minimum of 2 contracts and 40 hours billed (equivalent of 1 week of work and more than 1 project) for reliability.