Marketing and web design are most commonly outsourced jobs

Marketing is outsourced internationally far more than any other job function, according to data analysed by Remote.

The global HR solutions company examined data from Upwork, one of the world’s largest contractor marketplaces, to reveal the most commonly outsourced job roles and which nations have the most freelancers available for work.

This involved analysing more than 313,000 freelancer job adverts published online. 

Researchers found a third (32.8%) of the adverts being posted online were for marketing, followed by web design which was way back on 10.7%. These were followed by web development (8.7%), e-commerce development (8.6%) and content writing (8.2%). 

Outsourcing certain responsibilities to freelancers and contractors has become an increasingly popular solution to many of the modern-day challenges faced by businesses, and is a trend which has taken off since the pandemic. 

US has most freelancers available for work 

Remote and flexible working policies mean employers are no longer bound by geographical constraints when seeking out freelance support, meaning they can more easily hire contractors based in different countries.

It means the talent pool has been drastically widened and, in many cases, local skills gaps can be bypassed. 

With this in mind, Remote examined which of the 38 countries belonging to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) had the most freelancers available to work. 

And the US came out on top, with 22.1% of the total number of freelancers. The most common freelancer job function being offered was writing/editing, followed by art/creative and design. 

Turkey had 13.6% of available freelancers, Colombia 9.5%, Mexico 8.5% and the UK 6.4%. Canada ranked eighth, offering 4.7%.

The OECD country with the fewest freelancers was Iceland with 0.02%, which technically makes it the least suitable option for finding international freelancers at scale.

Read the full report: Which job functions are best to outsource to international contractors?