Wanna-be web editor freelance ISO clued-up financial guru.

January 11, 2008 12:12 PM

How much should I quote for a daily rate working freelance as a web content editor?

I've been asked for a daily rate as a web editor working for a London-based major company's huge "intranet". How much should I quote as a daily rate?

Bonus points for those who can also suggest cheap places to stay, ideally with wi-fi.

posted by electriccynic to work & money (6 comments total)

Oh, and extra double-plus bonus points for any advice to give to a newbie freelancer in respect of tax and niggly little things like that.
posted by electriccynic at 12:13 PM on January 11, 2008

First things first, you need to get in touch with HMRC (aka the Inland Revenue) to let them know you are now self employed and to register to make Class 2 National Insurance payments (currently approximately £10 per month).

On the job side, you need to figure out what your general situation will be for the next several months. You might find the company wants to force you into becoming a contractor. If so, you might have issues if you don't have your own limited company, and may need to use an "umbrella" company (there are many available, they don't charge too much - Parasol are a good one). This is especially true if you're going to be going into their office for, say, 40 hours a week, and it's your "main job." If this is true, the Inland Revenue actually considers you to be employed in a sense.

So.. are you going to be a true freelancer, with multiple clients, or are you going to be working almost solely for this one company? If it's the latter you have some work to do in getting your affairs in order. If it's the former, however, just declare yourself self employed and bill the London company, along with other clients, as you wish, save about 25% of your income to give to the taxman one day, wait for a tax return to turn up in the distant future, and just keep tons of records on what you're doing, billing, and spending.

The bare minimum I can see for such a role in London at the moment would be £120 (and I say bare minimum), up to £300-£350 per day for a significantly more established role. I'd say the "average" is probably in the £150-£200 range.
posted by wackybrit at 12:26 PM on January 11, 2008

By the way, HMRC has TONS of useful booklets and guides for people in your situation with, naturally, the official way of going about almost anything you'd want to achieve tax and employment-wise. I believe you can get many of them off of their Web site, or you can get them to send you some (or collect from a tax office yourself, depending on where you are).
posted by wackybrit at 12:27 PM on January 11, 2008

At the risk of sounding like a broken record: FreelanceSwitch deserves a place in your bookmarks.


See kids, a "record" was this vinyl disk with grooves...
posted by The Deej at 12:46 PM on January 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

It's usually 2-3 times what you'd usually make in an hourly position. There's a self-link to setting consulting/freelance fees in my profile.
posted by acoutu at 1:35 PM on January 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

Check with the London Freelance branch of the NUJ - there's lots of useful info there. And if you're not in the union, think of joining. They suggest a daily rate of £160 for plain subediting, £240 if it involves any (fairly simple) HMTL markup.
posted by ComfySofa at 4:22 PM on January 11, 2008