The Freelance Generation: Why Arts Education Is No Longer Optional
The future structure of work and what it means for education
Our education curricula were devised when the expectation was that children leaving school would be employed by companies or go to university and then be employed by companies. AI is turning these assumptions on their head. It is already the case that some 40% of knowledge workers in the USA are self-employed freelancers but by 2027 it is predicted that over 70% of all US workers will be freelancers. This is a revolution in the pattern of employment.
In the UK the pattern is changing more slowly but in 2025 there were 4.4million self-employed people of whom half were freelancers defined as highly skilled self-employed professionals working across areas like creative, technical and professional services. Again both these numbers are expected to grow significantly in the next couple of years. Payrolled employment fell by over 100,000 in the last year and a quarter of employees are considering becoming self-employed. Freelancing is especially prominent in certain sectors, with data showing that self-employment makes up 31.5% of the creative workforce in England and Wales – well above national averages. This underscores the strong presence of freelance professionals in creative fields such as media, arts, design and entertainment.
The generous state financial support for the unemployed/sick makes comparisons between the USA and UK labour markets slightly complicated but what is clear is that the trends in both countries show a shift to self-employment/freelance working that is gathering momentum.
What are the implications of this for education? What steps are we taking to ensure children understand about basics like time-keeping and self-discipline to get jobs done? At what stage do they need to learn about invoicing and taxation? How can the setting of projects and assignments help children develop the patterns of work that will allow them to succeed in a competitive world? How can children be given problems to solve and then helped to learn about presentation, collecting supportive data and constructing a persuasive argument? How can they be encouraged to be creative about solutions – to think outside the box? We need to teach students how to collaborate, critically think, communicate, and learn information in order to solve real problems. Children need to have a positive motivator: who are they writing their short-story for, what are they trying to show who in that picture, who are they creating a map for (eg a sibling needing to find their way from school to home)? Even at the simplest level defining a problem and seeking a solution, creates a project and that is vital preparation for the future world of work.
Likewise the creativity of art or the discipline of practise for music, or the experience of projection and clear expression in drama or oracy, are all fundamental building blocks for a future of self-employment, self-discipline and self-reliance.
