Is that a joke? "As little as £16 per hour"? I would kill for that salary, just reading manuscripts all day. I work in a school office for shit money and it's soooo stressful. Are you seriously trying to tell me that there are people who are paid as much as £16 per hour who do as shit a job as is described on here.
@CurlyhairedAssassin - 😂😂 - but if you're freelance, your hourly rate has to cover you for holidays, time off sick, etc. We can't work 37 hours a week every week!! And an editor also doesn't work on paid work 8 hours a day - we have to do marketing, admin, accounts, send invoices, reply to emails, do CPD - lots of non-billable hours. So our hourly rate has to cover all that!
The Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading has suggested minimum rates, and these start at £26/hour for proofreading, to cover all the items I mention above! See https://www.ciep.uk/resources/suggested-minimum-rates/
And why: The rates assume freelance professionals running their own business and therefore include a factor to allow for costs that an employee does not have to pay but are paid for by their employer, such as holidays and sickness absence, National Insurance, pension provision, continuing professional development (CPD), office space and utility bills, software and subscriptions, and business equipment and supplies. The freelance hourly rates are therefore not directly comparable with hourly employee rates. (Taken from the website above)
What we do is not just 'reading manuscripts all day'. There's a lot more to it. See www.ciep.uk/about/faqs/working-as-proofreader-or-editor