Best legit online jobs for beginners that’ll kickstart your freelancing career.
Freelancing is an amazing career to have. It can open your world to meeting new and interesting people. People that you wouldn’t have met before.
Although, if you’re worried you need tons of experience and a gigantic portfolio of client work, don’t worry. All freelancers (including myself) had to start somewhere. What we all have in common is that we don’t have a portfolio of client work.
In fact, all I had when I started was a background of some employers I used to work for doing
- Junior admin roles
- Hospitality roles
- Retail work
Not exactly impressive to any potential client as a freelancer. But I didn’t let that hold me back. Instead, I pursued these easy online freelance jobs for beginners that you can do too.
5 Best Legit Online Jobs For Beginners
Transciptionist
Transcription was my very first job as a full-time freelancer. My daughter had started at nursery in the afternoons and I go a few hours of quiet time where I could start doing client work.
But what was I going to do?
Taking a look back at my experience, the thing that came out very loud and clear was that I had a history of transcribing audio.
Although I had not strong typing skills. I wasn’t fast at typing and I was always making those typos when trying to touch type like a pro. But I knew that I could do it as a beginner.
So I took up a free course on Udemy where I brushed up my transcription skills, put together a portfolio, and then created a pitch for my transcription services. This all cost absolutely nothing and was put together in a couple of days.
Next, I joined some relevant Facebook groups which were about UK transcriptionists looking for work as I didn’t know a thing about online freelance jobs for beginners.
Then after a few days interacting in the group and responding to posts looking for transcriptionists, I landed my first client. This first client gave me about 10 hours of work a week which gave me around £300 per week.
How much do transcribers make?
Currently, in the UK the going rate for new transcribers make around about 50p per minute. This of course all depends on the niche you’re going into and the level of your skills.
But if you’re going in as a complete beginner and transcribing general audio files, then you can expect to be making 50p per minute.
Though, if you’re looking at how much you need per month and the amount of time you’ve got available to do client work and 50p per minute is just not going to be enough here are 3 other types of transcription jobs.
3 Types of transcription jobs
Audio transcription jobs are mainly just generalist jobs. There’s nothing wrong with being a generalist, it’s how I started out in the industry.
As a generalist, you get a huge variety of work for various different niches. This is a great benefit for you as you’ll start to recognize what niche you prefer to transcribe for and for which format.
Video
The video transcription niche is a very in-demand niche right now. According to Statista, 30,000 hours of content is uploaded per hour to YouTube.
That’s a lot of videos that need transcribing. Because the videos tend to have subtitles as this helps the YouTube channel owner with increasing their reach.
So if you love watching YouTube and find a creator not using subtitles who really should be, then create a portfolio, pitch your idea and sell the result for the creator.
Medical
If you know your medical jargon, then this area can be one for you to go into. Although, when applying for this type of role you’ll need some certifications to show your experience in this industry.
But if you’re serious about this niche then take a look at college courses for admin or touch typing in the medical niche. Build a portfolio and find some agencies that are searching for medical transcriptionists.
Here are 3 medical transcription agencies in the UK to take a look at.
- Accuro Transcription Solutions Ltd
- Midlands Transcription Services
- EQ Transcription Services Ltd
Legal
Just like with the medical niche, you need to know your legal jargon.
There are of course many different areas in the legal niche but you need to build a portfolio if you want to work in the legal niche.
To get started building a portfolio for the legal niche, take a look at college courses for admin or touch typing courses in the legal niche.
When you’ve got your portfolio together take a look at these 2 top legal transcription agencies in the UK.
- Sterling transcription
- eScribers (Auscript Ltd)
Virtual Assistant
Business owners are busy people and don’t have the time to complete those admin tasks such as
- Bookkeeping
- Organizing appointments
- Events
- Customer relationship management
If however, you’re a whizz at any admin task that business owners need doing, then create a portfolio, and sell your virtual assistant services to a specific niche of business owners.
Just remember that business owners can be of all sizes from the hairdresser and handyman to the SME. They all need some help from a virtual assistant.
The average earnings of a virtual assistant in the UK are £14 per hour and you can get clients from freelance job boards or join an agency. Here are 4 top agencies considered the best virtual assistant companies in the UK.
- Time Etc
- AVirtual
- VirTalent
- Zirtual
If you’re looking at these agencies and think you don’t have what it takes to be a great virtual assistant then check out these essential resources. These resources will help you kick start your career as a virtual assistant.
Social Media Manager
Are you great at Instagram, Twitter, or even Facebook and know how to
- Keep followers entertained
- Know how to get more followers
- Convert followers into buyers
You don’t need to be a whizz at all platforms. Because if you’re a star at just one platform then you’re going to be worth every penny for a business owner.
Business owners don’t have time to keep up with social media but they know it’s a vital tool to build their brand awareness.
So start building a portfolio designed to target a specific niche and start targeting clients who you see on social and not making the impact that they could be doing.
Although of course, your portfolio for being a social media manager is your own social media profile.
So if you want to be saying ‘I can get Instagram followers and get loads of engagement’, then your own Instagram profile should be doing this. This will increase confidence that you’re not just winging it and know what you’re doing.
Writer
Writers are in high demand. There are many different types of writers that are needed and if you’re a relatively new writer then there is a low barrier to entry for these roles.
The only real thing you need to be a freelance writer is to have some sort of writing skills. Don’t worry if you failed English at school there are many writing tools out there that can help you and free training to brush up your writing skills.
Different types of writing you can go into are
- Blog writing
- Website content
- Ghostwriting
- eBooks for lead magnets
- Social media captions
So if you’ve got a flair for writing content that is engaging and tells a story that hooks readers then why not give freelance writing a go?
Learn here the 3 steps to start a freelance copywriting business without any experience.
YouTube Video Editor
As touched on earlier in the transcription jobs, there are loads of videos being uploaded to YouTube every day. So, not only does this mean they need a transcriber for the subtitles. But they also need a video editor.
What video editors do for the YouTubers is to create polished videos that make them look like a professional. This professionalism builds trust with their audience and grows their audience.
As a video editor, you can go onto a platform such as Fiverr and charge $$$’s. Alternatively, if you want to cold pitch clients you can.
But to do this you need to find YouTubers who have a budget to hire you and are in need of your services. This is not impossible to find, you just need to think about who you know is a success already and now trying to make it on YouTube.
Also, think of who in your network who is successful but could also be a success on YouTube. This is your ideal client.
Another hot job is to become a YouTube SEO expert where you can earn $1000 per gig.
In A Nutshell,
There you have it the 5 best legit online jobs for beginners. To get started attracting these roles you need to perfect your skills in these areas, create a portfolio, and start pitching your services to clients or on your freelance profile. If you need help perfecting your skills, check out these skills workshops designed for new freelancers who want to build a freelance career.
