More remote projects for freelancers & IT service providers

The impact of Corona

In addition to the obvious health risks, the Corona crisis also brought severe restrictions to everyday life. Shops were temporarily closed and companies announced short-time work. Other measures such as social distancing and compulsory wearing of masks in supermarkets are still the rule and probably will be for a while. Besides the undisputedly right, but also restrictive measures, the Corona crisis has just led to more empowerment elsewhere: remote working. This development has already been seen in one of our latest analyses hinted at. Here we now focus fully on the topic of remote on the project market from October 2019 to today.

Strong increase since March

Public authorities, medium-sized companies, hip start-ups - the remote culture is anchored differently in each employer. This is also evident in the project market for freelancers. While many presumably see the freelance profession as closely linked to the possibility of location-independent work, in practice this is still far from the standard. The chart below shows the development of projects with remote shares in recent months. Before the Corona crisis, only 10-15% of the projects advertised had a remote component (i.e. at least one day of home office per week). Since March, this value has shot upwards and has now reached its peak for July with 28%.

Banking sector and automotive industry with pent-up demand

The company's industry can also play an important role in remote friendliness. Our data shows that especially companies and groups from the pharmaceutical, banking and automotive industries struggle with the issue of remote working. Here, the average percentage of projects with remote options is below 5%. The insurance, media and telecommunications sectors are in the middle of the pack with just over 10%. Companies from the transport & logistics and energy sectors are the most progressive: here the remote share is over 15%.

A plea for remote work

Whether the development described above is sustainable is difficult to judge. Among the projects, there are still many companies that want to return to complete onsite work as soon as the situation allows. However, the development will have an influence in any case, because: Many companies that have been reluctant to allow remote working will now be forced to experiment. They may realise that remote work is not so bad. Because if I offer this possibility, I expand the possible applicant pool for my project enormously, because not only freelancers in the immediate vicinity apply for my project.

And what is perhaps even more important: you show that you trust the other person to do their work, even if you are not permanently watching their back. Those who decide to freelance appreciate the independence and freedom that this form of work brings. Without self-discipline, ambition and initiative, it's hard to be on your own. Therefore, freelancers in particular should be allowed to work the way they do best in order to ultimately complete projects faster and with higher quality.

About the database

Our analysis is based on more than 3,000 monthly projects from over 70 recruitment agencies in German-speaking countries. Projects were classified as "remote" if they involved at least one day of remote work per week.

Many more analyses on the topic of remote work, but also on hourly rates and skills, can be found on our platform lyncronize.com Apply today for one of the projects that we update every day.