How to become freelance? Points for independence from various procedures & inexperienced / no skills

1. Is it difficult to become freelance from “inexperienced & no skills”?

In general, it is difficult to become independent as a freelancer from the state of “inexperienced” or “no skills”. As a general rule, it is desirable to gain some years of work experience before becoming independent. Even if you do not have much work experience, acquire the minimum skills in advance by acquiring qualifications before becoming independent.

1.1 Reasons why “inexperienced & no skills” independence is difficult

There are two main reasons why it is difficult to become independent from “inexperienced & no skills”. If you still want to become independent as a freelancer from inexperienced people, please refer to the interview article with a freelancer introduced later in this article. It will be a reference for action plans to gain achievements as a freelancer from inexperienced.

■ Limited means of acquiring projects

Freelancers are expected to be ready for action. In most cases, it is recognized that it is not a target for raising, and past achievements are emphasized when making a contract. Therefore, the contract conditions are a little high, and it is difficult to meet the conditions without experience or skills. Introducing by so-called “connection” may lower the hurdle, but in the case of an industry that has never experienced this, it is difficult to trace the network, and it is often a tough battle.

■ Unit price will be lower

If you pay the same amount of money, it makes sense to hire highly skilled personnel. Therefore, if you try to win a project without any experience or skills, the unit price will inevitably drop. It may not be worth the amount of work, and the result may be that it is better to work part-time than to become freelance.

2. Current status of “freelance” work styles

The height of the hurdle to “become freelance from inexperienced” is as described above. Then, many people may be wondering, “How many people actually make money as freelancers” and “How big is the freelance population in Japan in the first place?” Introducing the freelance population and the “percentage of freelancers with monthly income of 100,000 yen or more”.

2.1 Changes in the freelance population

The freelance population has skyrocketed in recent years. According to the “Freelance fact-finding survey 2021” conducted by Lancers Co., Ltd. in 2021, it is called freelance (“side-business crevice worker”, “multi-work parallel worker”, “free-work free worker”, “self-employed independent owner”. The population working as a total of the four forms) increased by 57% from 2020 to ” 16.7 million “. The number accounts for 24% of the total working population , and the economic scale has reached 28 trillion yen, an increase of nearly 10 trillion yen from last year.

Reference: Freelance fact-finding 2021 ｜ Lancers

2.2 Typical freelance occupations and work contents

We picked up three typical freelance occupations, “Web writer”, “Web designer”, and “Programmer”, and compared the work content, required skills, estimated monthly income, etc. in a list.

3. Procedures required to become freelance

What kind of procedure is required to become freelance in the future? We will introduce the necessary procedures in three phases: “preparation”, “opening procedure”, and “after opening”.

3.1 Preparation

Like self-employed, freelancers have less stable income than regular employees. Then, you will have more trouble in examining credit cards, mortgages, and car loans. If you want to take out a house or car loan, do it as a full-time employee. Similarly, raise your credit card limit.

3.2 Opening procedure

The procedures required to open a business are as follows.

■ Submit a business start notification

If you want to formally work as a sole proprietor, you need to submit a business start notification ( notification form for opening / closing a private business ) to the tax office. Please note that you must submit it within one month after opening. You will need to bring your seal and ID when submitting.

■ Submission of blue declaration approval application

You can choose from two types of tax returns for sole proprietors: “white tax returns” and “blue tax returns.” If you want to work as a freelancer in earnest, we recommend “Blue Declaration”. Although the content of the tax return will be complicated, there is an advantage that the number of deductions can be increased and the deficit can be carried over for three years.

■ Consider switching to health insurance

If you have company health insurance, you can continue to use it within two years after you retire. However, after that, you will need to switch to National Health Insurance, so be prepared in a planned manner.

■ Switching from welfare pension to national pension

Unlike health insurance, the welfare pension cannot be used continuously. Please be careful not to forget that you will need to switch to the national pension at your place of residence within 14 days of your retirement date.
The following 5 points are required when going to the procedure.

3.3 Independence Part 2

Once you become independent, you need to find a freelance deal. There are various methods such as “business as an individual” and “find a job via an agent”, but in each case, a contract procedure is required.
If you are a freelancer, you will need to file an annual tax return. There is a deadline for filing tax returns, but it is often confusing in the first year, so it is recommended to start early.

4. Example of an engineer who actually became freelance from inexperienced / no skill

I will introduce how the person who became freelance from inexperienced and no skill acted by taking an interview as an example. Until independence-Please refer to the action plan after independence.

4.1 A woman who turned from a financial institution’s business to an engineer in the wake of a traffic accident

Mr. Yajima, who was a sales position at a financial company, took a break from work due to a traffic accident, which led him to consider changing jobs to an engineer. Currently, I am in the department called IT Assistant, who is in charge of PC kitting and lectures on system operation methods. I hope to shift from full-time work to working from home in the future, and I am also advancing the acquisition of the necessary skills.

4.2 A man who started studying at the age of 29 and turned into a beautician → engineer

Mr. Takada, who was a beautician, turned to a freelance engineer because of the difficulty of work and income. She is not good at studying, but she is improving her skills efficiently by using video sites. At the beginning of his independence, he felt pressured because he was a freelancer, but he seems to be treated like a regular employee at any site and feels a gap in a good sense.

5. Trends in Recommended Jobs for Freelance Engineers

As for the recent recruitment trends of freelance engineers, first of all , according to the recruitment projects handled by professional engineers in terms of income, the projects for start-ups start from “monthly income of 300,000-400,000 yen”. When it comes to projects for the upper class, there is also a monthly income of 1.5 million yen (annual income of 18 million yen).

Let’s take a closer look at each job. ( Professional engineer research)

5.1 Help desk system

■ What kind of projects are there?

The main work place for help desk jobs is the IT department within a non-IT company. For example, major retailers (such as Ryohin Keikaku), real estate companies (such as XX city development), and energy (such as XX gas) are customers.
Most of the work is about kitting PCs used by employees at work (setup, installation of various software, etc.), dealing with IT-related troubles, and giving lectures to employees on how to use the new system . ..

■ Estimated average monthly income / annual income

The average monthly income for help desk projects is about 350,000 to 450,000 yen in the volume zone for team member classes . If you are a leader class, there are more projects, but the maximum monthly income for general help desk projects is about 550,000 yen.
In the case of a project that presents a monthly income of 550,000 yen, it is a major premise that the above-mentioned work contents can be done by one person, and knowledge about infrastructure (servers, networks, etc.) and member management experience are also required.

■ Recruitment trends

The number of help desk-related projects is small in the first place. The reason is that it is easy to get in touch with the position and inside information of the company. Therefore, the employees of each company are often responsible.
In addition, it is necessary to learn not only the technology but also the business flow of each company and its own “manner”. Because we don’t want people to come and go, contracts with a fixed term, such as freelancers, are recruited less than other engineers because of the risk of withdrawal in a short period of time.

■ Skills you should acquire

If you want to receive orders for help desk projects, you need to acquire the following skills.

5.2 Network engineer system

■ What kind of projects are there?

There is a tendency for large-scale and large-scale companies such as financial companies (banks, securities, insurance, etc.) and social infrastructure companies (energy, telecommunications carriers, transportation (railways, aviation, roads)) to have many projects.

■ Estimated average monthly income / annual income

The average monthly income of network engineer projects is about 400,000 to 600,000 yen in the volume zone for member classes. If it is a leader class, there are more projects, but the standard maximum monthly income for general network projects is about 800,000 to 900,000.
In the case of a project that earns more than 800,000 monthly income, as a network manager, you are required to have leadership experience such as member management and management as well as negotiation with customers and network design and construction.

■ Recruitment trends

The number of network engineer projects is increasing one after another. As IT infrastructure is shifting from a physical environment to a cloud environment, there are an increasing number of large-scale projects to renew the existing environment.

■ Skills you should acquire

If you want to receive an order for a network engineer project, you need to acquire the following skills.

5.3 Coder system

■ What kind of projects are there?

There are many projects to create corporate corporate websites, campaign websites, etc. Rather than directly from the company (end user) who wants to create a site, there are many recruitments from companies that specialize in site creation and advertising companies .
As a business scope, there are many cases that include UI / UX design, such as designing an image that the customer tells us “like this”, creating mockups, HTML, and CSS coding.

■ Estimated average monthly income / annual income

The average monthly income of coder-related projects is about 400,000 to 550,000 yen in the volume zone for member classes. For more projects, a wider range of skills are required, such as coordinating as a director and being able to handle JavaScript as a front engineer.

■ Recruitment trends

Coder jobs are declining at this time. This is because the number of campaigns, etc. has decreased due to the influence of Corona, and the chances of creating a site have decreased. Therefore, there is a great possibility that it will increase in the future.

■ Skills you should acquire

If you want to receive orders for coder-related projects, you need to acquire the following skills.

5.4 Front-end engineer system

■ What kind of projects are there?

The main development is the screen part of sites for general users and Web services (almost no closed ones such as management screens in the company).
On large-scale sites, there are also recruitment at production companies like coder projects, but in the case of projects of start-up companies such as “live distribution application” and “matching service”, recruitment is often done directly from the end user. is.

■ Estimated average monthly income / annual income

The average monthly income of front-end engineer projects is about 500,000 to 600,000 yen in the volume zone for member classes. Of course, you can use TypeScript and JavaScript, but if you can master modern frameworks and have experience with server-side languages ​​such as PHP and Ruby, you can aim for a higher price.　

■ Recruitment trends

The number of front-end engineer jobs is increasing one after another. The reason is that there are more and more new web services and apps.

■ Skills you should acquire

If you want to receive orders for front-end engineer projects, you need to acquire the following skills.

5.5 Server-side engineer system

■ What kind of projects are there?

Like the front end , there are many developments on websites and web services , but this also includes closed ones such as management screen development . There are also recruitment at production companies, but in the case of projects of start-up companies such as “live distribution application” and “matching service”, recruitment is often done directly from the end user. There are also server-side development projects such as social games.

■ Estimated average monthly income / annual income

The average monthly income of server-side engineer projects is about 500,000 to 700,000 yen in the volume zone for member classes. If you have experience in the front part such as JavaScript and TypeScript, or if you have knowledge of cloud infrastructure such as AWS, the range of aptitude will expand and you can expect a higher unit price.

■ Recruitment trends

Jobs for server-side engineers are increasing one after another. The reason is similar to the front-end engineer, because new web services and apps are constantly increasing.

■ Skills you should acquire

If you want to receive orders for server-side engineer projects, you need to acquire the following skills.

6. Recommended qualifications for freelance engineers

The qualifications that we would like to recommend to all those who want to become freelance engineers are the Basic Information Technology Engineer Examination and the Applied Information Technology Engineer Examination . These qualifications are recommended in the following ways:

If you would like to know more about the Information-Technology Engineers Examination, please see the following article.

What is the Fundamental Information Technology Engineer Examination? Difference between morning and afternoon, study method, reference book summary!

What is the pass rate for the Applied Information Technology Engineer Examination? Summary of difficulty and study time [2018 version]

7. Summary

This time, as a way to become freelance from inexperienced or inexperienced, we will start with the current situation and difficulties common to working styles called freelance, necessary procedures, etc. I introduced it. At present, it is difficult to find a good project if you are inexperienced, but there are support systems such as agents, so please use it well.