Self-Employed Toolkit

If you're self-employed or looking to become self-employed, you're in the right place.

IPSE is made up of thousands of freelancers, contractors, consultants, independent professionals and interims, in addition to a dedicated team bringing you membership benefits and tools like the ones below. IPSE's aim is to help you survive and thrive in your self-employed journey.

Below you will find some of our most popular and helpful tools, guides and advice on how to successfully start up and run your self-employed business.

Explore membership

Guide to Setting Rates

Not sure if you're charging enough?

Many clients expect freelancers to have a fixed daily or hourly rate, but this isn’t the only option. There are lots of ways to design a list of tariffs for your services. This guide will help you do that. It will help you prepare a convincing answer to the question "what is your day rate?", by working through these four actions:
1. Prepare
2. Package
3. Price
4. Persuade

Download

IPSE Incubator

Considering going freelance or in the early stages of your self-employed career?

Considering going freelance or in the early stages of your self-employed career? IPSE's 12-month Incubator programme provides hands-on support for launching a new business. Each month, you'll receive a range of helpful resources and tasks to complete, taking you step-by-step through the creation of your business. Plus, you'll have access to a dedicated account manager and helplines, should you have any questions along the way.

Learn more

Cashflow forecast and cashflow statement

Manage your cashflow

This cashflow template is designed to help you estimate and monitor your business income and expenses over a period of time. There are two spreadsheets in this template - one is a cashflow forecast and the other is a cashflow statement. The cashflow forecast helps you to plan and estimate your income and expenses in advance. With the cashflow statement, you can keep track of your actual financial records from the first day you set up.

Download

Guide to marketing yourself

How to market yourself

Once you’ve set up your business, you need to be found by clients and customers. Marketing is the key to that! Sales and marketing are core functions in any business – freelance businesses are no different. It is important to represent yourself well as you continue to identify new opportunities. This guide will help you know how to market yourself through different channels to maximise prospective opportunities.

Download

Watch the webinar

New to self-employment? In this webinar Chris Armorgie and Samantha Reading from SJD Accountancy share practical advice that freelancers, contractors, and small business owners should consider in their first year of self-employment.

Job platforms

UpWork – A platform for a variety of freelance jobs around the world and a great starting point for new freelancers.
Journalism.co.uk – A great resource for freelance writers and journalists.
Fiverr – Fiverr started as a platform for jobs that paid $5, but now hosts a range of well-paid freelance jobs. It is now one of the largest databases of freelance jobs.
PeoplePerHour – For freelancers from all industries. This website allows you to see the price upfront, so no more bidding before you know the budget!
YunoJuno – YunoJuno advertise specifically for creative and tech freelancers, but the projects are often wide-ranging.
99Designs – This is a job platform specifically for UK designers.
Freelance Writing Jobs – Sign up to Sian Meades-Williams’ newsletter here for the best writing jobs in your inbox every week.
Freelancer.co.uk – this is another great job board for all freelancers to try, which allows you to easily search for the kind of work that you are looking for.

Top tip: when setting up your first profile, copy and paste your answers into a document. Then, when you are asked for the same details on a separate platform, you can simply copy and paste your answers over quickly.