Professor puts contractors under the spotlight

Who they are; how they work and how they get work will in future be the focus of increasingly joined-up studies on the freelance contractor community, covering both the UK and overseas.

Outlining these three gaps in official and industry figures, Professor Patricia Leighton said the fourth area required to build a fuller picture of contracting would explore the individual efficiency of freelancers.

But as Emeritus Professor of Employment Law at the University of Glamorgan, Prof Leighton says her attention is currently focused on the framework within which freelancers operate.

“[For freelancers] that’s both trying to get work and maximise work, but it’s also the role of the employing organisation,” she explained to the Daily Telegraph, in a feature for freelancing body PCG.

 The “big question”, Leighton anticipates, for her future research to answer is whether end-users “actually get the best out of these people [freelancers]?”

In other words, are the clients of freelancers “maximising their use or are they throwing money down a black hole?”

Pointing to existing studies, Prof Leighton said skilled freelance professionals were a growing force in the EU – up by 12% since 2008 according to figures by Eurostat, although the stock of ‘self-employed’ is down, marginally.

In the UK, the same growth margin among the freelance workforce has been recorded though not, believes Prof Leighton, solely because tough times have cut permanent jobs and forced the victims to freelance as a last resort.

However, matching the EU average is less reassuring for the UK and its 12% return when compared to the Nordic states, where the number of skilled freelancers is up by 20%,

“They are growing phenomenally across Europe”, Prof Leighton said of the number of new freelance consultants, often on the back of “experienced” and “bright” professionals making lifestyle decisions.

She explained: “We know that there is not, as many people have thought, much of correlation between recession and growth in self-employment. People are not necessarily seeking refuge in self-employment when they’re being made redundant.”