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Running Your Business
The parts of freelancing that are not tax and not software, and that nobody hands you a checklist for.
Start at the beginning if you are new: registering as a sole trader with HMRC, what you are allowed to call the business, and whether to stay a sole trader at all.
Then pricing, which is where most of the money is won or lost. Setting a day rate and choosing between a day rate and a fixed price cover the arithmetic; budgeting on irregular income covers what happens after the money arrives. Before the work starts, the contract clause checklist is worth twenty minutes.
On the obligations nobody mentions until they apply: whether you need to register with the ICO and pay the data protection fee, when working from home triggers business rates, what changes when you hire a subcontractor, and whether to trademark the name.
Insurance sits here too: what a sole trader actually needs, and separately public liability, professional indemnity and employers’ liability, which becomes a legal requirement the moment you have an employee.
Checked 26 August 2026. General information, not legal or financial advice.
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