Research from the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self Employed (IPSE) has found that freelancers’ confidence in their own businesses has risen to a positive figure for the first time since Q2 2021.
The result has increased from -11.0 in Q4 2021 to 2.2 this quarter despite record levels of inflation and rumours of a global economic recession.
Derek Cribb, CEO of IPSE, said: “After a mixture of pandemic uncertainty and post COVID-19 inflation, life for freelancers is finally starting to look up. Work is returning, confidence in their own business is growing, and stress is falling rapidly. In other words, the dynamism and energy of the self-employed sector is finally beginning to rear its head once more.
“However, freelancer confidence should not be taken for granted. The cost-of-living crisis is still wrecking the UK economy and the government needs to ensure that self-employed workers aren’t pulled back into the abyss.”
The IPSE Confidence Index, which is released every quarter has also found that while there are some positive results, the index still shows that confidence overall in the economy is still low and that freelancers’ confidence in the UK economy for the next three months has only increased slightly from -23.7 in Q4 2021 to -23.1 this quarter.
The report also showed that the 86 per cent of freelancers now expect their input costs to rise over the next 12 months, which is a significant increase from 81 per cent in Q4 2021.
On a positive note, job-related stress for freelancers has fallen to its lowest levels since Q3 2019 as the UK moves further away from the pandemic. The index shows that job related stress is now at 5.84 which is on a 10-point scale where zero is not at all stressed and 10 is extremely stressed. It has also found that job satisfaction has grown to 5.81.
