careerFOCUS Managing a portfolio career
Some two million people in the UK are freelancers, many of them working on a portfolio of different contracts. Gail Lydon offers an insight into what this means in the further education and training sector.
I am often asked about working freelance/being a portfolio worker and how to go about it. The questions can come at a conference where I’m sharing information or when I’m running professional development sessions. When I reflect I realise I often give a list of things to watch out for, disadvantages and difficulties. My aim isn’t to dissuade anyone from going freelance because, for me, there have been many advantages. But it isn’t easier than being employed and it isn’t the best choice for everyone. I have been teaching since the mid-1990s and it was by chance that I moved towards portfolio working. I had spent a very successful year teaching in terms of results in English and maths (what we now call embedding) and I was offered a role as a trainer for the Key Skills Support Programme. Initially I ran three professional development days for them over the year, using three days of my annual leave. The experience was invaluable, and from this I gradually reduced my teaching time over the next 10 years and increased the time I was carrying out training and consultancy for a whole range of organisations (hence being a portfolio worker). Along the way I developed my expertise by, for example, working for awarding organisations marking test papers, moderating portfolios and becoming a regional lead for a number of national programmes – reading and keeping up to date as I went along.
Gail Lydon is a teacher, teaching and learning improvement adviser, researcher and project manager. She is a Fellow of SET.
All of this was very organic, but it didn’t happen by chance. I was networking, constantly applying for short contracts of work. My goodness, I wish I had a pound for every CV I have sent off over the past 25 years. You do need to be resilient because not every application is successful. And here is my first bit of advice – make sure that your CVs are specific to the role for which you are applying, and give examples of the work you have done and how you can contribute. I worked for a number of blue-chip companies
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153,000 freelancers in
teaching and education Exploring the UK Freelance Workforce in 2016. Small Business Research Centre, Kingston University.
before moving into teaching and this experience has served me well. Administration and being organised are central to success. Yes, you need expertise in your subject area, but if you don’t hit your deadlines you’re not going to be given a second contract. Also, don’t assume that people will pay you if you
don’t send in an invoice or that they will pay you promptly! So, you need to sort out your cash flow. You need to be very organised as you will now be in
charge of paying your own tax (you must register with HMRC), national insurance, organising your pension,
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