IT Freelancer, 2018 is Your Year! 

An Overview of the Current Indian Freelancer’s Market 

According to reports, India is the second largest freelance market in the world. It is also considered to be the most preferred destination to outsource work related to technology, IT, and software development. In the global online freelance market, India is believed to hold a 55% market share in the work related to technology. 

As per the data from Freelancer.com, Indian freelancers have been getting projects related to search engine optimization, PHP programming, web design, graphic design, and digital and internet marketing. While the trends change according to market conditions and demands, given the data it is still quite safe to say that a talented and skilled Indian freelance worker in these fields will get interesting projects. 

Like the global scenario, the freelance market in India is also booming. Companies are warming up to the idea of hiring skilled freelancers as consultants and project managers for specific assignments. 

The Indian startup ecosystem that is brimming with companies creating new technologies in the finance, health, food, retail, analytics, and artificial intelligence sectors are continuously looking for skilled tech professionals, app developers, coders, and programmers on a project basis. 

Professionals in the IT sector have become more open to taking up freelance work on assignment basis. Some experienced and senior professionals have also started to work full-time as freelance consultants. 

The acceptance of the freelance work culture by both the employers and the professionals has ensured that the demand for such work arrangements is set to grow in the near future. 

What’s in Store for the IT Freelancer in 2018 

Technology is advancing. New technology requires professionals with new skills and knowledge to incorporate that technology into products and services. Often organizations do not have a team with the skills required to work and deliver on the projects involving new technology. Training existing employees and bringing them up to speed is costly and time consuming. It also delays projects. Often companies end up losing assignments due to unavailability of the right manpower. 

To overcome this problem, organizations that are working on or vying for projects based on advanced technology have started to hire contract workers, part-time workers, or freelancers who have the requisite skills. 

This trend will open up new and challenging opportunities for freelancers in the coming new year. 

Due to constraints like capital, time, office resources, start ups that are in their nascent stage of product development and testing prefer to work with freelancers. This gets the work done at a comparatively lower cost. Hence, freelancers can expect projects and assignments from the start up as well. 

While there is a positive outlook towards availability of work for freelancers, their other major concern is money. Till recently, freelancing projects were infamous for being low paid, paid late or not paid at all. This made it difficult to attract talented and experienced professionals. Now, according to data released by Bloomberg, Indian freelancers in natural language processing and machine learning fields are being paid an average of $123 per hour. 

So if you are experienced, skilled, and professional there’s both work and money in the IT and other technology fields in 2018. 

To ensure that you can make the most of the freelance gigs in 2018, we’ve put together a list of fields which are predicted to be in demand in the coming future. 

● Artificial Intelligence 

● Data Mining 

● Block Chain 

● Mobile App Development 

● Natural Language Processing 

● Technology Writing 

● Cybersecurity 

● Digital Marketing 

● Programming 

● Data Analytics 

● Data Science 

● Machine Learning 

● Cloud Computing 

These are just some of the skills that are set to be in demand in the coming year. As technology evolves, so will the skills required to work with the new technology. Along with these new technologies, the other regular IT skills that can help you get an edge over your counterparts is good understanding of innovation in the technology and IT sector, Tech writing skills, end-to-end project management skills, and design and development. 

So, just upgrade your skill set, update your profile, and get ready to take on challenging work. Women professionals thinking of starting a freelancer career or experienced freelancers looking for new projects can also register at eWomen.co to gain access to freelance and work from home opportunities. 

Start to prepare now, so that you can welcome the new year ready to work