Staffing Industry Analysts’ European Employment Barometer includes data published by the Oxford Internet Institute’s Online Labour Index. The global index is the first economic indicator that provides an online gig economy equivalent of conventional labor market statistics. It measures “the supply and demand of online freelance labor across countries and occupations by tracking the number of projects and tasks across platforms in real time.”

Of the human cloud platforms tracked by the index, we can see IT-related freelance work dominates all jobs. For example, at the time of this writing, “software development and technology” occupations accounted for 55% of work on these platforms for the week of Aug. 30 to Sept 6. The share of IT occupations accounted for in the index has expanded significantly, up from about 35% dating back to May 2016 when the index began.  

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Online Labour Index (OLI), Occupations

According to SIA’s new The Gig Economy and Human Cloud Landscape – 2019 Update report, the global B2B human cloud achieved a scale of $7.8 billion in gross spend in 2018. Based on the index above, this translates to approximately a $4 billion market for IT jobs.

We generally see freelance IT skills most leveraged on digital platforms as being weighted primarily to software development and data science types of roles. Human cloud platforms are also utilized to fill critical IT skills gaps and where small to midsize companies find it cost prohibitive to hire a full-time employee.

IT work in the human cloud does have its limits, however. For example, companies are generally disinclined to hire a remote freelancer in areas requiring strategic decision making (e.g. more senior IT roles) and/or those that entail access to sensitive company data (e.g. cyber/data security, competitive intelligence, operating metrics, etc). More details on the interaction of the human cloud and IT can be found in the complete 70-page report.