MBO Partners recently released its 2020 Client of Choice study results, which found that 7.6 million independent professionals (freelancers, independent consultants, etc.) provide their skills to business clients.
And as the report chart below (click to enlarge) shows, the number of independent professionals in this space has grown rapidly over the past decade - increasing at almost 4 times the growth rate of overall employment during this period.
Independent professional service providers work in a variety of fields. The top three professions are consulting, coaching, and research (17 percent), creative services (16 percent) and information technology (13 percent). Other popular professions include education and training (8 percent), sales and marketing (7 percent), and healthcare and sciences (8 percent).
The common denominators among these roles are that the work is knowledge-based and that the skills they represent are often difficult to source through traditional labor markets.
Another important study finding is between 2017 and 2019, the proportion of independent professionals who said they have a lot of choice in picking their clients jumped from 48 percent to 58 percent.
This is due to the growing "war for talent" during this period and the difficulty corporations are having in finding and attracting specialized talent.
The study was done before COVID-19, which has obviously changed things.
But the trends driving both the growth of the number of independent professional services providers and their increasing ability to choose who they work for are strong and will likely continue.
And as we pointed out in last week's article Staffing to the Valley's, Not The Peaks, the demand for independent workers - and especially those with specialized skills - will likely grow even faster post-pandemic.
For those interested in learning more, MBO Partners is holding a webinar this Thursday (May 21st) from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM EDT. Click here to register for the webinar.
MBO Partners is an Emergent Research client.
