Contract
By the day
£400a day · £600 out of hours
- Your process, your tools, your Slack
- 30 days notice either way once it is running
- IR35 assessed per engagement
- Suits open-ended work, or cover while someone is missing
Freelance web developer: Four jobs,
one contractor.
Most engagements are two of these at once, the build and the plan, or the build and the search work. You are not buying a package; you are buying whoever is missing.
From £400 a day·White-label·Contract or fixed scope
Where a freelance web developer fits: Start from what is stuck,
not from a service name.
Four things people have said to me on a first call, and what each one turned out to be.
Freelance, side by side: What each one
actually includes.
Pick one. Everything in it is listed, with what each part means. How it runs and the questions people ask are on its own page.
Sitemap and page structure
What pages exist, how they relate, and what each one is for. This is where SEO is won or lost, before a line of code.
Design, if there is none
I will design it: a site that looks considered and does the job. If the brand underneath it needs doing too, that is its own piece of work and it has its own page.
Build
From your design or mine, on a platform that suits the team who will keep it running rather than the one I enjoy most.
Real content in
Your words and pictures loaded and laid out, not lorem ipsum with a note to fill it later. If an existing site is being replaced, moving it across is its own job: see website migration.
Accessibility and performance
Keyboard, focus order, contrast and labels checked, not assumed. Core Web Vitals measured on real pages, then fixed.
Launch and handover
A checklist worked through line by line, then documentation and a walkthrough with whoever picks it up.
Codebase pickup
Reading what exists, getting it running locally, and writing down what I find as I go.
Theming
Building inside an existing design system rather than around it.
Integrations
CRMs, payment, booking, analytics, whatever the business already runs on.
Data and content migration
Moving content between systems without losing formatting, media or URLs.
The last ten percent
Edge cases, error states, empty states, the admin experience, the parts that get cut and then block launch.
Documentation
What I found, what I changed, and what the next person needs to know.
Sounds like you if
“The developer left and took the context with them.”
Crawl and indexation audit
What search engines can actually reach, what they are ignoring, and why.
Core Web Vitals
Measured on real pages with real content, then fixed at the cause rather than the score.
Structured data
Schema that matches what the page actually is, not bolted on for a rich result that will not appear.
Internal linking and structure
How pages relate, what the hierarchy says, and which pages are orphaned.
Redirect mapping
For replatforms and rebuilds. Every old URL accounted for before launch, not after traffic disappears.
A content plan
What to write, in what order, that your team can realistically keep up with.
Scoping and sequencing
What has to happen, in what order, and what genuinely blocks what.
A plan with real dates
Dates that mean something, revised openly when they change rather than quietly.
Vendor and agency wrangling
Chasing the people who are not chasing themselves.
Decisions logged
Written down when made, so nobody relitigates them in month three.
Stakeholder communication
Told the truth, early, in language they can act on.
Risk called early
The unpopular conversation, at the point where it still helps.
Two ways to hire a freelance developer: By the day,
or by the job.
Same person, same work. The difference is how the time is counted and when you pay for it.
Fixed scope
By the job
A pricein writing within 2 working days
- The scope and the order written down before you say yes
- The first milestone is paid first
- The rest is invoiced as each milestone is accepted
- No VAT charged
White-label work: Direct, or under
your agency's name.
Some of this is direct with the business, and some of it is as the freelance web developer behind an agency's work. Five years agency-side was client work delivered under someone else's name, so I have been on both ends of a white-label job.
Businesses
- You talk to the person doing the work
- No account layer in between
Agencies
- Client calls under your brand, or none at all
- A non-solicit, signed before you ask
Reading on freelance work
Guides, if you would rather read first.
Before you brief me: What agencies
ask first.
If yours is not here, ask it on a call. Thirty minutes, and it is free.
01 What does a freelance web developer cost, day to day?
£400 a day, and £600 a day for evenings and weekends, with no VAT charged. Where a job can be pinned down it becomes a fixed price instead, quoted in writing within 2 working days of the call. There is no minimum booking and no retainer to sign.
02 Do you work white-label, under our name?
Yes, and most of it is. I can sit behind your brand entirely, join your standups and your Slack, and never appear in front of your client. Or I can be introduced as the developer on the job, if that suits the relationship better. Your call, agreed before anything starts.
03 How does IR35 work with a freelance web developer?
Most of this work is outside IR35 on its facts: fixed scope, my own equipment, no supervision over how it is done, and the right to substitute. That is a determination you make rather than one I can make for you, and the written scope is deliberately specific so there is something real to base it on. There is an article on what actually decides it.
04 Can you pick up a build somebody else started?
Yes, and it is a common reason agencies ring. A codebase with no documentation and a developer who has moved on is an ordinary Tuesday. The first paid step is reading it and telling you honestly what state it is in, which is cheaper than finding out in week three.
05 How quickly can you start?
Depends what is already booked, and the availability is on this page rather than something you have to ask for. A reply comes within 12 hours in working hours, and the scope call is usually the same week.
06 What happens if the project overruns?
You hear about it early, which is the whole point of the weekly rhythm. A day rate means you are paying for days either way, so my incentive and yours are the same: say it is slipping while there is still room to do something. A fixed price absorbs my estimating mistakes, not yours.
07 Do you sign our contract, or do you have your own?
Either. I have a standard agreement, and I will sign yours if legal prefers it, including reasonable confidentiality and IP assignment. What I will not sign is an unlimited liability clause or a restraint that stops me working in the sector.
08 Who owns the code?
You do, on payment, and that is in writing. The repository, the accounts and the domain are yours throughout. Nothing is held hostage, and the handover is part of the job rather than an extra.
What a freelance web developer works in, day to day
Astro (opens in a new tab) · Next.js (opens in a new tab) · React (opens in a new tab) · TypeScript (opens in a new tab) · WordPress (opens in a new tab) · Shopify (opens in a new tab) · Vercel (opens in a new tab) · Cloudflare (opens in a new tab) · GitHub (opens in a new tab) · Figma (opens in a new tab) · Analytics (opens in a new tab) · Search Console (opens in a new tab) ·
What it costs
Below the market median,
without the agency margin.
You should not have to sit through a call to find out whether you can afford me.
Need a freelance
web developer?
Say what is in the way, and I will tell you which of the four it is.
- Within 12 hoursA reply
- Within 2 working daysA written scope and a price
- OrThe name of someone who fits better