London Calling: Freelancer.com Opens Office in the United Kingdom, Appoints Saif Bonar as UK Country Manager

LONDON, September 6, 2011 -

Freelancer.co.uk, the UK arm of the world’s largest online services marketplace Freelancer.com, today announced the opening of a local office and appointment of Saif Bonar as Country Manager of the United Kingdom.

Freelancer.com, which is ranked in the top 300 websites globally according to Alexa, acquired the largest domestic freelance marketplace in Great Britain, Freelancer.co.uk in February 2010. Since then, the United Kingdom has grown exponentially, and is now the second largest employer globally on Freelancer. This success in the UK has led to the need for further expansion in the region, commencing with the appointment of a dedicated UK Country Manager and opening of a local office.

Freelancer.com connects SMEs, entrepreneurs and individuals in the west with a talented global workforce of 2.7 million, to get jobs done across 400 categories including website design, marketing, sales, SEO, accounting and architecture.

“Today, over 120,000 people in the UK are using Freelancer to get high quality work done by tapping into our global pool of nearly 3 million freelancers. Our UK userbase is growing at an astronomical rate, and now that we have dedicated local resources and support, we expect this to grow even faster,” said Saif Bonar.

“This is empowering British SMEs with a fantastic productivity tool. British SMEs can now turn their ideas into reality at a click of the mouse button, while dramatically reducing overheads and increasing profit margins - all in an economic downturn!” he added.

SMEs in the United Kingdom are technology savvy. Today the internet industry in the UK is worth over 100 billion pounds Sterling and online retail accounts for 7.2% of the UK GDP, one of the highest in the world.(1)

“Previously, SMEs in the UK were hamstrung in getting something as simple as a website built to sell online. Quotes often came in at between 5,000 pounds to 10,000 pounds,” said Mr. Bonar.

“Now, UK SMEs can also capitalise on accessing a skilled, low cost workforce and get the same website built for 500 pounds — enabling them to boost sales, save money and become more competitive on a global scale,” he concluded.

Adrienne Leibenberg, Director of Hestia Services, a leading provider of renewable energy solutions in the UK recently completed a total re-branding through Freelancer.co.uk, saving over 30,000 pounds for the business in the process. Commenting on the success Adrienne said, “We have been operating for over 17 years, and have increased our activity 400% in one month - as a direct result of the freelance workforce recruited through Freelancer.co.uk.”

“We initially went through a traditional supplier selection, tendering and quoting process. Fourteen quotes were obtained in the UK ranging between 2,300 pounds and 40,000 pounds. Hestia was not prepared to spend this amount of money on a website and abandoned finding a provider in the UK who could meet our cost and specifications. Using Freelancer, we obtained 38 bids on our project from around the world in just a few days. We selected the most expensive provider, who’s price was in the range of the cheapest quote we had obtained in our traditional supplier selection process.”

Top 10 categories for projects posted by UK Employers

    PHP                                  26%
    Website Design                       22%
    Graphic Design                       13%
    SEO                                  11%
    Internet Marketing                    8%
    Copywriting                           8%
    Flash                                 7%
    Link Building                         6%
    Data Entry                            6%
    HTML                                  6%

Top 10 categories for projects completed by UK Freelancers

    PHP                                  21%
    Copywriting                          20%
    Website Design                       18%
    Articles                             17%
    Graphic Design                       15%
    Article Rewriting                     9%
    SEO                                   8%
    Proofreading                          6%
    Ghostwriting                          5%
    Blog                                  5%

Largest employers globally

United States 40%
United Kingdom 10%
India 7%
Australia 5%
Canada 5%

Media Invitation

To celebrate our success in the UK, Freelancer.co.uk are hosting a party at Shoreditch Town Hall, London, EC1V from 7pm - 10.30pm TONIGHT, 6 September 2011.

Any media wishing to attend should contact Matthew Tubbs @ Johnson King PR by email: freelancerteam@johnsonking.co.uk

Sources
1. Boston Consulting Group/Google [www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/28/net-worth-100bn-uk]

About Freelancer

Webby award winning Freelancer.co.uk is the largest outsourcing marketplace in the world. Through Freelancer.co.uk, businesses connect with independent service providers and freelancers. Freelancer.co.uk connects over 2.7 million professionals from all over the world. Through our website, employers can hire freelancers to do work in areas such as software, writing, data entry and design right through to engineering and the sciences, sales & marketing and accounting & legal services. Jobs start at 20 pounds, and the average job is under 150 pounds, making Freelancer.co.uk extremely cost effective for small businesses and entrepreneurs, which often need a wide variety of jobs to be done, but cannot justify the expense of hiring full time.

Saif Bonar, UK Country Manager, +44-79-66-960-625, www.freelancer.co.uk, saif at freelancer.com, Twitter: at freelancerGB