Pakistan Ranks as the 4th Most Popular Country for Freelancing Industry

The global freelance market has touched an all-time high with more and more freelancers from all over the world turning to the internet for their livelihood.

The Oxford Internet Institute (OII) has recently published a report named ‘Online Labour Index’ from 1-6 July 2017, showing the online gig economy – what skills are offered by what countries, the supply and demand of labors – using real time data from four of biggest freelancing platforms including Fiverr, Freelancer, Guru and People Per Hour.

The freelance global market is rising rapidly.

For platform-based work, these four websites represent more than 40% of the global market. The figures and results gathered from the 4 freelancing platform depict a reasonable picture of the overall market.

How Does Pakistan Rank in the Freelancing Sector?

We’ve all been hearing the progress being made in the freelancing sector by Pakistan. The report published by OOI sheds more light on this.

In ‘Top Occupation by Country’, Pakistan is placed at 4th position overall in the ‘Software Development and Technology’ category.

Owing to the growing number of educational institutes offering various programs in Computer Science and Software Engineering, the number of professionals in this field are increasing and more and more are switching to freelancing instead of the conventional 9-5 jobs.

The Rankings

Pakistan is ranked fourth in the list, below India (24%), Bangladesh (16%) and the United States (12%). It means that Pakistan is home to 8.5-9% of the overall freelance workers, as depicted by the report.

Philippines, UK, and Canada are next in the list. India is the global leader in the Software Development and Technology services with a staggering 13% market share, whereas Pakistan commands 3% of the market share. Overall, the subcontinent provides a startling 55% of the Software Development and Technology Services.

In the workers by region list, Asia dominates the global market, with a mammoth 60.5% percent of market share, whereas Europe is ranked 2nd, North America is 3rd, and Africa, South America, and Oceania are placed 4th, 5th and 6th respectively.

The Gig Categories

Six of the biggest occupational categories were used for the classification of countries and regions. The categories are:

  • Software Development and Technology
  • Creative and Multimedia
  • Writing and Translation
  • Clerical and Data Entry
  • Sales and Marketing Support
  • Professional Services (Accounting, Legal Services, and Business Consulting)

The categories are listed in order of the demand in the global market, published in another report by the OII.

Head of Sports and LENS at ProPakistani.pk


  • I am surprised to see Bangladesh at 2nd spot and they seem to have the biggest share of “sales and marketing support” i wonder why?

    • Bungladash is second because of low rates I advice to my Mates that raise your rates Please Don’t do that free. Its creative work don’t allow others to access your abilities in much lower cost.

  • Quite amazing !
    Loving every bit of being freelancer and bringing name to my dear motherland Lovely Pakistan.


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