Six per cent of Brits now use sharing economy services to supplement or create income, with handmade marketplace, Etsy, taxi/rideshare app, Uber, and peer-to-peer lending service, Zopa proving the most popular.
This rise of ‘on-demand’ workers has been enabled by new technologies and platforms that provide marketplaces for people to monetise products and services and is in stark contrast to the traditional ‘nine till five’. Seventy per cent admitted that they would consider working a less rigid working pattern, (e.g. where they would not have to work set hours every week such as 9-5, would not always have to be present in the office, would have the freedom to take on another job or go self-employed) while only 13 per cent of people currently working a ‘9 to 5’ job’ said they’d definitely expect to be working a traditional 9-5 role by 2025.
In addition to the many opportunities to work in a different way, the amount of money these workers have been able to bring in are also significant. A third of those using the likes of AirBnB and Etsy to supplement or create income are making between £101 and £500 per week and 19 per cent are earning between £501 and £1,500 per week; three per cent are even making between £1,501 and £5,000 per week. While many are successfully embracing the sharing economy, this still leaves the vast majority who are not: 64 per cent of those researched own but don’t monetise their car, 54 per cent have but don’t rent out their spare room and 51 per cent have buyable skills but don’t trade them.
Rich Preece, Europe VP and Managing Director, Intuit said: “We knew that the sharing economy was taking hold, but that fact that six per cent of us are already using these services to make money is pretty amazing. We’ve always had a fantastic entrepreneurial spirit in the UK, but these platforms are enabling more of us than ever to explore new income streams and dramatically different working habits. There’s clearly a very strong demand to work and consume on-demand.”
There are now nearly five million self-employed individuals in the UK and the draw of self-employment is a compelling one: being your own boss, greater control over working hours and the chance to make more money were the top reasons people who have been in employment gave as reasons they would like to have quit their jobs.
Rich Preece continued: “With serious financial rewards available, the challenge is for those using these services to manage the potentially significant earnings generated. It’s easy to get yourself on the sharing economy; the difficulties come in navigating the minefield of tax regulation and administrative tasks that come from having non-salaried sources of income. It’s vital for individuals to have a plan and process in place from day one.”
