Hired guns

If you don't know much about freelancing, you might see it as inferior to permanent employment. There's a stigma to not having full time work that many people find undesirable. But if you're at a certain age, with the right qualifications, then you may be missing out on a freer, more lucrative life.
Nigel Coleman is a recruitment consultant at Judd Farris. He finds employment for folk at the white-collar end of the construction market, dealing with QSs and project managers: workers who you perhaps wouldn't associate with freelancing. And he is succinct about its main appeal.
"The best thing, obviously, is pay," he says. "If you're a three year post-qualified QS in London, you can command about £20 an hour, which works out at something like £40,000 a year, compared with a permanent employee's salary of £15 an hour (£30,000) for the same job." David Thorn, a freelance building surveyor since the 1980s, is similarly enthusiastic about freelance pay rates – while working on a job in Plymouth for 48 weeks, he received £1000 a week. However, he says the windfall is balanced by the need to travel around to find work.
"I come from near Bristol, so while I was down in Plymouth I was living out of a suitcase most nights," he recalls. "It's not the nicest way to live. Now I'm working on a contract for similar money, but it's only half an hour from my house. It's ideal." Employers use freelancers because they don't have to pay the benefits and statutory payments given to permanent staff, and also because they gain greater flexibility in how they structure their workforce. The downside is they don't know their staff as well – which is where the recruitment consultant comes in.
The process can work two ways: recruiting can be done reactively, when a company asks the agency to find a project manager for a certain project. But it can also be much more proactive, with the consultant pitching his clients almost as if he was an agent. This is how Coleman works: "Once I have a pool of candidates, if a suitable post comes up I'll go through my list of regular names and actively suggest names to the client," he says.
Coleman much prefers to establish long-lasting clients who he knows to be up to scratch.
"When I recommend a worker to a client then I have to be sure they're competent," he says. "The best way to do this is for the worker to come into the office so we can chat for about 45 minutes. It just means that the whole relationship is much more personal – and I know what positions will best suit the freelancer." Whatever line of work, there needs to be trust between the agency and the freelancer. Freelancers legally have to be paid within 10 days, but the rigmarole of signing a time sheet each Friday can be problematic, especially if you can't find the line manager. If you build up trust with your manager, however, you can sometimes get signed sheets up to three weeks in advance.
Thorn, 52, is a good example of how you can combine freelancing and forward planning to get the best of both worlds. He did an HND in building and construction land use at the former Bristol Brunel college, and then picked up his Associated Institution of Building certificate and became a member of the Institute of Builders before he was 30. But after working for Laing, Wimpey and a local firm, he grew tired of the lack of flexibility. After signing up with recruitment agency Ander Glazers Will, he started on site working on a Littlewoods refurbishment in Weston-super-Mare, and doubled his money.
<B>Coping with the bad times</b>
But it hasn't been easy. During the recession in the early 1990s, freelance work completely dried up for 18 months, as firms cut non-essential costs and tightened their belts.
"There was no work around at all," he remembers. "I had to work as a freelance surveyor of large plastering jobs to see me through." It was to prove a salutary lesson for Thorn. With two daughters to support and a mortgage to pay off, he realised that he needed to diversify into other areas. So he set up his own limited company doing house surveying, and also pitched in to refurbishment work over the weekends. Now, with the market slightly more cheery, he's almost got too much work – but he always remembers the bad times.
"You do get great flexibility as a freelance but if you've got any kind of money problems then you have to be aware of the gaps between work," he says. "It's important to have something to fall back on to fill them." If you're wanting to spend more quality time with the kids then freelancing is clearly an option. But it can work if you want to do other things. "Some people just want to work for six months and then go travelling," says Coleman, citing an Irish QS who phoned up wanting half a year's work before going travelling around the world. "If you've got the qualifications, then there's no reason why you can't do it." <B>Who makes an ideal freelancer?</b>
Although this kind of itinerant lifestyle clearly suits the young, twentysomethings do not make ideal freelancers because they don't always have sufficient qualifications, experience, or both. Nor can freelancing be seen as a way in to future permanent employment as it can be in, say, journalism.
"Employers want freelancers who can come in and do a good job straight away," David Thorn says. "There's no time to learn while you work, or get training. But freelancers in their 20s haven't got the experience on site. They've got to be able to talk to the men on site, which can sometimes be a rough old process. At that age, they're green as grass." Nigel Coleman agrees. Between 80 and 90% of his charges are in their 40s. "It's difficult to get freelance work in your mid-20s because clients will always be looking to employ people on a temporary basis," he says. "They don't want to train people – they just want the job done." Another important factor in the freelance process, which offsets the higher pay, is the onus on freelancers to turn up on site with the right certificates, having paid for them out of their own pocket.
Thorn has an impressive list of these. "If you're managing people on site you need a first aid course, which costs about £500 for three days," he says. "I also have a scaffolding and excavation certificate of competence that needs to be renewed every two years. You've also got to be competent to do an on-site induction for other workers." On top of all that, Thorn has to renew his subscription to the Chartered Institute of Building every year.
Going freelance is definitely not a decision to be taken lightly. It can be insecure, worrying and heavily affected by the economy. But if you're experienced, well qualified and wanting to order your own life better, then it could be a sound career move. Coleman knows what kind of candidates he looks out for. "Good freelancers – as the clichés go – are self-starters who can hit the ground running. It's definitely not a soft option, but if you can make it work, you can have a great quality of life."