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If it’s work and if you can do it on a computer, then you can sell that service online…
The global freelance work marketplace has truly come of age and astonishing opportunities are now available to anyone with a computer and an internet connection. If you are a good freelancer you can not only earn a good living but you really can achieve the “holy grail” of being able to work “from anywhere”.
A common (and totally wrong) perception is that freelance work is not very well paid work. But it depends what you do!
While the global marketplace means that your competition might be from a country where wages are lower in general than where you are, certain skills are in very high demand and very short supply – and therefore highly lucrative.
You might be surprised and excited to learn that there are numerous freelancer jobs that pay 6 figures (over $100,000 per year).
Here Are 20 Of The Best Paid Freelancer Skills / Gigs:
1. Blockchain Developer
Blockchain is a very fast-growing tech sector and blockchain developers are in extremely high demand. Areas of expertise in this complex field may include • Private Blockchain • Public Blockchain • Ethereum • R3 Corda • Ripple Applications • Quorum • EOS • NEO • Open Chain • IOTA • Smart contracts • Stellar • Steemit • Multichain / cross chain • Mobile & Web App Development • Hyperledger
2. High-End Article Writer
Typical “industry standard” article rates are for $5-$20 for a 500 word article, but for top quality content, writers are being paid up to an astonishing $100 per article or more. To command these fees you will need a great track record, impeccable command of language, in-depth knowledge of the topic, plus peerless research and referencing skills.
3. Video Production
Yes there are people cranking out cheap videos by the score for a few dollars each, but the top quality content carries a correspondingly high price tag. There are currently “121 Services available” on fiverr.com offering video production priced at over $2000 per video. 69 of these are priced at over $5000! And you can see that these gigs are getting sales too! Note of course that your work has to be worth it – and you have to be able to justify the price tag in this highly competitive but in-demand marketplace.
4. MySQL Programming
MySQL is still the world’s most popular open-source database; and MySQL development, which requires knowledge of PhP and other languages can earn freelancer developers $50k-$100k pa.
5. 3D Graphics
Graphic design has long been a hot freelancer market. 3D printing / CAD / 3D rendering has become increasingly prevalent – increasing the demand for 3D design, a special skill set with plenty of opportunities.
6. Node.js development
Node.js is a free, open source environment for server side web develpment. A Node.js developer will typically work on server-side web applications in JavaScript; perhaps also using variants such as CoffeeScript or IcedCoffeeScript. Pay is competitive, with the average salary for a NodeJS developer in the USA quoted as $107,562.
7. Logo Design
Logo design has long been one of the areas of graphic design with high revenue potential. Over 250 gigs are currently charging $1000 for custom logo design on fiverr.com
8. Custom WordPress Developer
If you can create custom plugins and tailor-made WordPress sites, you can command good fees. Over 637 gigs are currently charging $1000 for custom WordPress dev on fiverr.com
9. Accounting (CPA) and Bookkeeping
Skilled accountants will always be in demand and despite the availability of accounting software, expert professionals are still indispensable. Certified accountants can provide a full suite of accounting, finance, tax, financial planning, business analysis, and other services remotely and experts can often charge $100+ per hour.
10. API Developer
Typically web developers have a stack of coding skills, of which API dev work may be one. API design and integration is a specialist field that commands good fees.
11. IOS / Android App Developer
This is an in-demand skill. 824 services priced over $1000 currently available on fiverr.com – many of which have numerous sales – which indicates the high level of demand here.
12. 3D Game Developer
Cross-platform games with features such as 3D animation, social network integration, VR / AR (virtual / augmented reality), in-app purchases etc are in high demand and at the high level can command high fees that scale with your level of ability.
13. Augmented Reality Developer
Augmented reality (AR) is a parallel field to virtual reality (VR). Similar-but-different; in VR, the experience is “immersive”, taking place in a completely simulated environment; whereas augmented reality superimposes information and applications on top of “the real world” – “enhancing” the real world with useful or enjoyable computer generated data.
14. Video Editing
With the exploding popularity of the video format for tutorials, television, film, documentaries and shows, as well as the rise of Youtube and other video hosting sites, the demand for video editing has grown immensely. Skilled video editors who are fluent with one or more of “the big three” video editing platforms – Final Cut Pro / Davinci Resolve / Adobe Premiere – can command good wages and work remotely.
15. Swift Development
Swift is the development platform used for Apple iOS devices. Swift developers can command good pay and annual salaries of $85k+ are not uncommon.
16. Voiceover Artist
I was astonished at the high typical rates charged for this work. But it takes great skill – you need excellent elocution, a perfect command of the language you will be using, and an ability to “voice” the work in a style suitable for the job. Typically voice over artists will specialize in a certain style, for example the styles for reading audiobooks or doing voice overs for advertisements are very different.
In the old days this work was done at professional recording facilities but modern tech enables of course people to work from almost anywhere. You don’t need a huge amount of tech but a good quality microphone, audio interface and audio editing software are requirements
There are a large number of jobs available – including documentary narration, telephony, audiobook reading, dubbing work, e-learning instruction, animation dialogue and video game voices. Top talent can earn from three figure sums for a 60-second commercial up to $3000 for an audiobook.
17. User Experience / User Interface Design
UX / UI designers are responsible for ensuring that websites and products are easy to understand, navigate and use by a wide range of people. This can be well paid work and is a specialized field that is in high and growing demand.
18. Natural Language Processing
This is another growing and highly specialized field that deals with computer comprehension and processing of human languages. Voice control of computers and speech recognition has come of age. Skills include Text summarization, Text classification, Sentiment analysis, Named entity recognition, Document clustering, Sentence Rewriting, Dependency Parsing, Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD), POS (Part Of Speech) Tagging.
19. Machine learning / AI
Outsourcing agencies are reporting this as the fastest-growing category on their sites. Average machine learning engineer salaries are over $110k.
20. AngularJS Development
This is an in-demand and growing field used in the development of dynamic mobile and desktop web applications. The USA average national salary is reported to be over $102,000.
