To wonder how many of you employ yourself and if not why not?

[girlfriend44]

Instead of trying to get someone else to employ you, and have the worry of applying for work, interviews, and all the other things that go with working is there a reason why you don't work for yourself?

There are lots of positives to it and you don't need to rely on anyone else?
If you don't self employ why not?

That depends on what you think of as secure.

For some people, having paid sick pay would offer security. For some prior knowing exactly what money you'll get every month, and knowing that you can afford to pay your mortgage feels like security. Depending on the kind of business you are in, you might have made a good income on paper, but you haven't actually received payment, and some clients might pay late.

Also, it can take a moment to build to having enough clients that you feel secure in your ability to earn enough. In the early stages of being self employed I had a few scary moments, waiting for money to come in with nothing to fall back on.

Honestly I can't think of anything worse. Constantly having to look for business/clients. Being responsible for overall success of the business?
No thanks, I'll take my regular payslip and go.

I have just registered as self employed.
I’ve been at home since having my youngest in 2022.
My previous WFH job no longer exists and there is zero childcare outwith school time so I’m setting up my own business and hoping to find the same work/life balance I had previously.

Earn way more self employed than employed. For less effort as I get to keep everything I earn. Except the huge whack I pay to hmrc! Thats the worst bit having to pay over tens of thousands of pounds. Easier to never have it than to have it and have it but then to pay it to the government.

Because I can’t have a licence to operate as a bank.

I used to, then I closed my business and took a salary job, for a rest. These last few years I've liked having a salary and sick days and colleagues and someone else to do the paperwork. But I agree I've not much liked being told what to do when it's not sensible things.

I'm going back into a kind of self employment now but this time as a partner, which I think will suit me better. I just don't like doing paperwork or calling people. I like doing my particular specialist work, a lot, and I'm quite good at it, and running my own business crowds that out, really.

That’s what I used to say too, but I think that’s quite an outdated view of employment. Yes, there is less flexibility, but I work with colleagues to decide when I’m taking leave and nobody has ever said no. We manage our hours and as long as we get the job done there are no questions about taking time off in lieu, going to the doctors, leaving early occasionally, taking long lunches, popping to a gym class et cetera. Before Covid when I was self-employed, I was really structured about taking holidays, but since Covid since the sector I worked n is struggling and I rarely had a holiday that work didn’t end up eating into. Or setting a holiday and then something coming up that I felt I couldn’t afford to miss (Not just about the immediate finances, but about building connections and future business). In employment I now turn off my laptop, turn off my phone, and don’t think about it until I get back, if something comes up in the meantime, a colleague will deal with it.

I think I read somewhere that there had been more people stopping being self-employed in the last year or so than any other recent period, I think so many sectors are in flux, AI is coming in, and I’ve certainly found that self-employment isn’t what it was before Covid. I wouldn’t have taken any old job, but you can find jobs that give you satisfaction and flexibility.

Not for me. Given the teacher shortage (especially in subjects like mine) and my qualifications and experience, my school would probably find it fairly hard to replace me, and I could probably walk into another job very easily.

I have worked in admin (with a few breaks) for 23 years. I have no qualifications and no niche interests that I could turn into a business that would support a family.
I don't particularly enjoy working so being employed means I actually have to show up and do something, if I was self employed I would probably sit there zoning out for most of the day not earning very much money.

I don't want the responsibility of running a business - I just don't have the bandwidth, and I don't have the drive.

I made the jump a couple of years ago after working for others for 20+ years.

It is not the easy option. You need the confidence to back yourself, savings to cover you until you are up and running, a drive for BD (which is never ending) and an ability to stay on top of admin.

I am now in year 3 and hope to surpass what I made in my last year before self-employment. I much prefer the way of working but it does have its stresses. I don’t have income protection (couldn’t get it due to family history) so if I am ill I will somehow have to keep working.

I would guess you don't have any actual self employment experience OP. I own my own business, and there is an awful lot more time spent applying for work by self employed people than by employed ones!

Because quite a few of us don’t work or want to work in sales or in a trade? My role is only available in a large company. Sure, colleagues can be annoying at times, but at other times they are good fun, you get a guaranteed stable wage, training, support, equipment, office space ect ect.

You do rely on your clients. You also have to find those clients while shouldering every other responsibility and solely suffering all the consequences when something goes wrong. I still preferred it though. Probably because I worked for some fools when I was young

I know several people who were freelance or starting businesses and they had no guaranteed level of income from month to month and I just couldn’t get my head around how people could live with that uncertainty. How do you cover bills, plan for holidays and do fun things that cost (theatre, converts, dinners out) i.e. budget? I also found that they took less annual leave as it would mean a loss income - they didn’t actually have much agency as a self employed worker as I did.
Perhaps different if run you a successful business.

Because it would be incredibly hard to do my specific job outside of the NHS.

I know it's odd, but for some reason this thread feels like the currently running donor sperm one. Something about the way OP is writing comments 😂

MN feels weird today.

I have ADHD and think I would find all of the forms/ paperwork and involved in being self employed difficult, things like taxes and keeping receipts and trying to find clients and advertising etc. I would also miss having a support network, having a line manager I can go to with problems and a team of peers I can ask for advice or get ideas from etc. I like the social element of going out to work and many of my colleagues are good friends.

Plus I’m a teacher, it’s not a job which really lends itself to being self-employed and I love my job and I don’t think there are any jobs where I could be self-employed and still enjoy my job as much as I do.

What do you do @girlfriend44 ?

This reminds me of a) the MLM trend where people were posting about how they were their own boss and that every day was a pay day (leaving out that the “pay” that day was £3.64 which was from them having had to buy their own products to try to boost their sales).
b) the current trend where people claim to sell “digital products” which seem to be shitty charts and colouring in sheets which obviously nobody buys and if you really were earning 120k a year from selling them then why are you so fucking desperate to get so many other people to sign up to doing the same thing?

It’s not a case for 95% of people that they can just work for themselves. Doing what? And what about pension, sick pay, holiday? Fair enough if you have a good and viable business or trade then fine. But Kelly who is an office manager earning 35k really really isn’t going to be taking it in “working for herself” unless she has a viable trade to ply.

I do know self employed people who do well. They are qualified plumbers, electricians, builders, lawyers and hairdressers. They went self employed after being employed for a long time and learning everything about their trade. I know fuck all people who do well from selling a company’s products or from digital sales or whatever.

Self employment works really well for lots of people. For some reason, it's become unfashionable in the last decade or so. Probably because successive governments have clearly hated self employed people!

When I started in the 1980s, it was a real boom time for self employment as there were government grants and lots of government support for people to start self employment, more so if they were unemployed.

Over 40 years of working life, I've acted for thousands of small businesses and self employed, and the variety is staggering, as it the enterprise and entreprenneurship of pretty normal people.

Someone upthread said crafts don't make you much money. Well, no, making stuff yourself by hand might not (it can for some), but one of my richest clients did exactly that - started a hand made very small scale craft business, bit of pocket money really, but then started selling surplus supplies on ebay that she had to buy in bulk, and her ebay shop took of, which led to her starting her own e-commerce website with Shopify, which led to her learning internet marketing, etc., and after a few years she sold her highly successful website for a few million - she'd long since stopped making things herself!

That's the thing with self employment - you often end up doing something nothing at all like you started out doing, simply because along the way you meet people (suppliers, customers, attend trade shows, etc), and it broadens your horizons.

Another client, brothers in law were made redundant and set up a wet fish round with a battered old van (all they could afford). A decade later, they sold their food producing company (marinaded meats, sandwich fillings, etc) for a few million. Again, it just morphed from one thing to another over the years.

Self employment really isn't as frightening as people think it is. I started my own accountancy practice 25 years ago. I'd never planned to. I just found myself with time on my hands and just got married and bought a house, so money was tight. So I just started doing a bit of book-keeping "on the side", by advertising in the local newspaper classified columns, made up a trade name and used an unknown mobile phone number so my employers wouldn't know it was me. I got loads of enquiries and went out to visit potential clients, not really sure what to expect. I'd never done selling nor marketing etc. It was absolutely fine, meetings went well, so a few of them signed me up. The biggest problem was finding time to do the work and finding ways of taking "side hustle" phone calls during the working day! It went so well, within a year I'd handed in my notice and took the plunge to go full time self employed with full accountancy services. Never looked back and never regretted it. It was hard at first, long hours, took lots of effort to set up systems, draft pro forma contracts, etc. But after say 2/3 very hard years, it all settled down, and gave me flexibility for childcare, attending school assemblies, etc. Now I'm heading towards retirement and only working around 20 hours per week, which will continue to reduce over the next five years. Not advertised for years, but still get the occasional new client via referral. It's now become a lifestyle business. My only regret is not doing it sooner.

It's a great shame that recent governments clearly hate small businesses and self employment. I really don't understand why. Except perhaps I do, it's because government is in the pocket of big business so ministers and senior civil servants aren't listening to small business and self employed groups anymore. Such a shame as I think a big push for self employment and small business could cure a lot of what is wrong with society and the economy at the moment as it would work brilliantly for lots of disabled people who can't cope with modern workplaces as they'd be able to set their own hours, only take on work they can cope with, pick clients they can work with, work from home as necessary, etc - all without the straight jackets of the traditional workplace and colleagues, etc. A large number of my clients are disabled and self employment really suits them.

I don't because I like the certainty of being paid every month. The risks that go with self-employment are outside my comfort zone.

@Startinganew32

But Kelly who is an office manager earning 35k really really isn’t going to be taking it in “working for herself” unless she has a viable trade to ply.

I've a few "Kelly's" as clients, some of whom are virtual PAs, one is an interior designer, another a window blind fitter. An office manager has lots of transferrable skills, granted mostly administrative, but also project management usually, plus a bit of people management, etc.

Yes, there is a clear line of progression for the trades to become self employed doing what they've been trained in, as you say, like plumbers, electricians, etc., but you really can't ignore transferrable skills gained in an office environment. Those plumbers, electricians, etc., often need support - they're probably not going to want to have to do their own admin, quotes, accounting, marketing, etc as they'll be more suited to "manual" work. Yes, some do all that, mostly the "one man bands", but the ones who want to grow their business, take on an apprentice or other staff, etc., will need "back office" support, and that's where your "Kellys" are in high demand.

Virtual PAs for example is a profession/job that didn't even exist 20 years ago. Yes, people had administration assistants, but it was mostly a paper based low level admin task. Now some virtual PAs do everything, answer the phone, respond to initial queries, update websites, prepare and send out quotes, manage bookings diaries, order supplies, raise invoices and collect debts, etc.

Didn't realise I'm supposed to be married to sell my crafts

It’s not that easy. You can only be self employed if you have the skills for something that can operate as such a business. If your experience is in retail, you can’t work for yourself - you need to be in a shop! And no, it’s not as simple as opening your own shop 🙄