5 Freelancing Skills That Are Paying $200+ Per Hour Right Now

Don’t let the title fool you – every freelancing skill can pay more than $200/hour. When I started freelance writing back in 2015, I was convinced I’d earn (if I was lucky) $20/hour. I figured writers were always ‘poor’ unless they hit it big like J.K. Rowling. Obviously, I was wrong – very wrong.

For the purposes of this article, I am going to cover five incredibly popular freelancing skills as outlined by CNBC today. The majority of the country will be freelancing by 2027 (I believe even sooner), so now is the perfect time to learn more about a solopreneur-style business you could be managing as soon as tomorrow. Let’s run it.

5 Freelancing Skills Making Bank Right Now

1. SEO (Search Engine Optimization): SEO, the art of increasing a website’s visibility in search results, is a popularly sought-after service right now as millions of businesses compete to land on the first page of Google results. SEO includes keyword research, strategic keyword placement on websites, credible links, and so forth. SEO specialists work with brands to organize the best keyword strategy while optimizing every website page (including the hidden ones) to position companies for more site visits and sales.

2. Social Media Marketing: This one goes without saying – social media is more important than ever today. From TikTok and LinkedIn, to YouTube and Instagram, businesses need help – and lots of it. They are willing to pay social media managers more than $200/hour to manage, post, record, and respond to patrons. Experts on Upwork are making $250/hour by offering up suggestions, algorithmic advice, and consultations to business owners on the complexities and unique cultures that exist within each app.

And if I am being honest, you have more social media marketing experience than you may realize! If you have been using social media for a decade now, you have a skillset you don’t even know is valuable.

3. Lead Generation: Lead generation is the lean, mean operation of bringing in potential customers for businesses online. It’s the art of figuring out, first, where these ideal customers reside online; and secondly, setting up funnels that convince these potential patrons to stop by the website. Lead generation includes everything from blog posts and articles, to live events, coupons, and social media advice. Many lead generation freelancers are making as much as $150/hour on sites like Fiverr and Upwork presently.

4. Email Marketing: Make no mistake – email marketing is one of the most effective and underutilized methods for securing business sales today. In fact, email marketing has an incredible return on investment – for every $1 spent, $36 is generated in return. Pretty much no other online funnels can guarantee that kind of result. Therefore, individuals with email marketing expertise and experience and making as much as $200/hour on Upwork. They are offering services like sales emailing, new product announcements, email copy advisement, and so forth.

5. Automation: This one is my favorite because automation is the future of every single industry. Freelancers smart enough to position themselves as marketing automation experts early on are going to reap some serious cash benefits. Marketers are using various software to automate tasks like social media posting, email sequences, customer service, and a slew of other mundane tasks right now. Experts in automation help businesses set up the tech, advise on the proper software to embed, and work side-by-side with business executives to ensure they are utilizing automation to its fullest extent. As such, these experts are charging as much as $250/hour right now on Upwork.

You Can Start Freelancing Today

If none of these services apply to you or your skillset, guess what? You can acquire experience in every single one of these categories by doing two things: 1) committing yourself to learning the skills on YouTube (free), reading books, and taking online courses and 2) starting out selling freelancing services in these categories with minimal experience, justified by a cheaper starting rate.

If you want to start out at $20/hour because you don’t feel you are an ‘expert’ (spoiler alert: there is no such thing as an expert with the amount of new information that comes out every day), you are going to gain experience in these service sectors very quickly. That is EXACTLY what I did when I started freelance writing! I had never written an e-book before, nor did I take a course on it. I just got started, let the client know I was new to it, and charged a cheap rate to be fair. Look where I am now!

I wrote an entire book on this concept, which you can access here.

Go out there and launch your freelancing dream. There’s no time like the present to get started.