The UK's Trades Union Congress (TUC) recently released a study that found that about 14.7 percent of workers in England and Wales - about 4.4 million workers - regularly perform work via an online gig platform.
They also found that 22.6% of workers in England and Wales have used gig platforms to find work at some point.
This is up from 5.8% who performed work via online platforms regularly (at least once per week) in 2016.
The study breaks platform-based gig work into four categories:
- Drivers and delivery workers increased from 1.9 percent of the workforce in 2016 to 8.9 percent in 2021.
- Household services workers rose from 3.2 per cent in 2016 to 7.9 percent in 2021.
- Workers running errands from 2.3 per cent to 6.2 percent in 2021.
- Workers performing remote digital tasks grew from 4.9 percent in 2016 to 11.9 percent in 2021.
Because platform workers often do a mix of platform work, there are overlaps across these categories.
One of the study findings that jumped out at us is that the share of gig platform workers doing this work to supplement their income has substantially increased since 2016.
As the chart above shows (click to enlarge), the share of gig workers who earn less than 25% of their income via gig work increased from 37% to 53%.
This is similar to what U.S. studies have found.
So just as supplementing income is a key reason most Americans do gig work, the same is true in England and Wales.
The study report goes into more detail on the data and includes ideas about improving the working conditions and financial security of gig workers.
It's well worth reading for those interested in platform-mediated work.