Freelancers in the UK are commanding higher pay as companies increasingly rely on contract workers to fill critical skills gaps, with a 3% year-on-year increase in average day rates to £390, according to a report by YunoJuno.

Strategy professionals commanded the highest rates at £520 per day, followed by market research (£491) and data (£469). The top 10% of freelancers across industries earn approximately £708 per day (£89 per hour), marking a 9% increase from the previous year

Meanwhile, the average contract length decreased slightly to 23 working days.

“We find ourselves at a fascinating point in both the labour and contractor markets,” CEO at YunoJuno, Runar Reistrup said in a press release. “While companies face hiring freezes and actively look to reduce headcount, these same companies are facing skills shortages that will have a major impact on business performance if left unsolved.”

The report also noted that freelancer availability reached an all-time high in the previous year before showing gradual recovery in Q4, indicating market resilience despite economic pressures.

“We are seeing more and more freelancers with strong AI skills coming to the market, having spent the last 1-2 years training and experimenting to become well-versed in AI’s capabilities,” Reistrup said. “With companies having little visibility around AI’s long-term business impact, leveraging on-demand flexible talent is certainly the way forward.”

The data from the report was drawn from more than 261,000+ freelance records on the YunoJuno platform from the full calendar years from 2022 – 2024.