I’ve been working online for over 3 years now.
But it still blows my mind that I can make money anywhere in the world!
I’ll be at an airport or on a beach and feel this big cheesy smile spread across my face as I grab my laptop to get some work done.
It just feels like such a novelty.
…Not to mention a privilege.
I mean, making money online offers the ultimate freedom. You’re not tied down by your job anymore!
And the best part?
Anyone can do it.
There are now so many ways to earn money online that anybody with a laptop can bring in a sizeable income via the internet.
Are you based in the UK and considering the switch to remote working?
Want to discover the best options for making money at home on the web?
Well, as a Brit myself, I thought I’d put together a long list of 30 genuine ways to make money online UK. I hope it helps!
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30 Ways to Make Money Online in the UK
Let’s get into it, then! In no particular order, from remote jobs to online side hustles, here are 30 ways to make money online in UK:
10 Best Ways to Make Money in UK Online
Do some digging and you realize there’s no shortage of ways to make money online these days.
However, some are definitely more fun, feasible and lucrative than others!
I thought I’d start by highlighting 10 of the best ways to earn money online UK before moving onto a longer list of possibilities.
1. Blogging
I’d be lying if I said making money from blogging is easy. I’ve been at it for 2 years and it’s still very much a work in progress!
Yet it’s 100% possible.
Lots of bloggers I know make sizeable incomes from their site(s) and some even boast 6-figure businesses.
The best part?
Any money you generate from a blog is generally passive in nature (from things like adverts on the site and affiliate sales). That means you’re not swapping time for money anymore. You literally make money in your sleep.
If you’re interested in giving it a go, here’s a useful guide from savethestudent.com that walks you through the process.
2. YouTubing
I’ve never tried my hand at making money from a YouTube channel.
However, it seems to be a bit like blogging in that (unless you’re very lucky) it takes a while to get going before gradually snowballing over time.
You create a channel, post entertaining/informative videos, attract views and subscribers, and then, at a certain point, monetize your content via ads.
If you eventually end up with a sizeable following, you might even start attracting sponsorship deals from brands.
Of course, the audience you create may also trust you so much that you can sell them your own courses/products and recommend other peoples’ to them (getting a commission from any sales you generate).
3. Teaching English
Teaching English is a hugely popular way to make money online.
And for good reason.
First off, there’s a lot of demand for high-quality English teachers.
And second, basically anyone who has a reasonable grasp of English and the ability to make video calls can do it!
Now, you’ll probably need an actual qualification as well (like the ones you get from TEFL), but they seem simple enough to acquire.
From there, you can start promoting your classes to people and/or sign up to various websites that link teachers with students. Examples of these companies include Amazing Talker and Zebra English.
4. Copy Writing
This is the route I took to start making money online from the UK.
Why? A few reasons!
The first is simple: I enjoy writing.
Secondly, you don’t have to be the best writer in the world to land a copywriting role.
And third, there are many different aspects of copywriting to learn and get better at, which (I hope) means it’ll never get old.
That diversity also leads to many different ways to make money from copywriting.
One business might want emails written, for instance, where another may need blog posts, and a third could want social media copy. Assuming you know what you’re doing, you can sell your services as a copywriter to all three clients.
5. Graphic Design
Whether they’re from the UK or anywhere else, graphic design has to be one of the most common ways people make money online nowadays!
And, once again, it makes sense…
First and foremost, you don’t need any official qualifications to start selling your services as a designer.
Sure, the best guys and girls often have formal training in the field.
But others simply teach themselves, master the craft, and go from there!
Landing clients is rarely easy (especially because there’s so much competition). Yet anybody can get a laptop, download some graphic design software, and (in theory, at least) start charging people for logos, t-shirt designs, and so on.
6. Becoming a Virtual Assistant
Good on the computer?
Great at word-processing?
Awesome with spreadsheets?
How about time-management and general organisational abilities?
If so, then you probably have all the skills required to be an ace virtual assistant.
Virtual assistants (VAs) basically perform all the usual administrative duties of ordinary assistants, except they work remotely via the internet.
Likewise, you’ll probably end up with more than one client as opposed to working full-time for a specific business.
In any case, there’s no shortage of demand for reliable VAs nowadays and, with more companies than ever switching to a remote model of work, I’m assuming that demand’s only going to go up.
7. Doing Fiverr Gigs
Fiverr is one of many online marketplaces that connects people who have projects to freelancers who have the skills to complete them.
As a buyer, you go to the website, search for what you need (e.g. a writer) and see page after page of writers advertising their services!
As a freelancer, Fiverr’s so well-known that you can expect buyers to see your listing (called a “gig” on the site), get in touch, and then pay you directly through the site.
Oh, and there’s literally a gig for everything.
If you have any skill, or are willing to perform any job, then you can create a gig offering to do it!
Now, if I’ve heard correctly, it’s called “Fiverr” because freelancers once charged 5 measly US dollars to do the job…
But don’t be put off.
Although offering such low rates remains a good way to land business on the platform (and an essential way to attract your first clients), you don’t have to charge so little.
Indeed, many freelancers offer a basic gig for $5 to attract a buyer’s attention, then increase the price dramatically for more significant work.
For example, as a content writer, I might create a gig on Fiverr with the title:
“I’ll write you an awesome blog post for $5”.
Click through, though, and that $5 blog post’s only 100 words long. If you want 1000 words, then I might charge $60, $100, or whatever.
8. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing’s a huge topic.
It’s also a very popular and lucrative way to make money from the UK online!
Here’s the premise:
You promote other peoples’ products to your audience.
If someone makes a purchase, then you get paid a commission.
Combine a large audience that trusts you with a high-quality product that they want/need and a sizeable affiliate commission and you can make a significant (passive) income this way.
9. Writing and Selling E-Books
Are you an expert on a particular topic?
Do you enjoy writing?
Have you always toyed with the idea of writing a book?
Well, publishing e-books could be the perfect way for you to start making some money online.
Thanks to Amazon, becoming a self-published author couldn’t be easier.
There’s no more pitching ideas to publishers to worry about. You go to Amazon instead and, from what I’ve read:
- Setup a “Kindle Direct Publishing” account
- Upload your e-book
- Set your price
…And that’s it.
Of course, you’ll need an attractive cover design and some knowledge of how to market yourself. But this is still a viable form of passive income that more and more people are starting to do.
Heads up: Nothing in life is free! Expect Amazon to take a significant cut of the sale if you do decide to sell an e-book on there.
10. Proofreading and/or Editing
Anybody who can spot a spelling or grammatical error from a mile-away could enjoy a successful online career as a professional proof-reader.
Here’s how it works:
- You get sent a piece of writing (be it a book, article, or blog post, etcetera).
- You read it through for mistakes.
- You highlight and/or correct those errors.
- And then you send it back to the client!
Now, most proof-readers get paid by the hour.
Yet a cool way to do this would be to focus your attention on getting the clients and send their writing to somebody else to do the actual work!
In other words, you’d operate as the middle-man and take a cut off the top.
20 Additional Ways to Make Money in the UK Online
Did none of the previous ideas take your fancy? Don’t worry! There are many more ways to make a living online. Here are 20 of them:
11. Couponing and Cashback Sites
Okay, so redeeming coupons and shopping sensibly on cashback sites might not provide a full-time income.
But they can definitely become useful online sources of additional cash.
Clipping coupons to redeem at a later date can save you reasonable chunks of money each month.
And leveraging promotions on cashback sites (such as Quidco and TopCashback) can do the same (just make sure you only buy things you actually need. Otherwise you’ll be spending much more than you ever save).
12. Doing Online Surveys
One of the easiest ways to make money from home in the UK is to do paid online surveys.
Granted, the money is less than amazing (expect £1 or less per survey), but sites like Swagbucks and SurveySavvy will literally pay you for your opinions.
Do enough of them and you can bring in a tidy amount of extra cash each month!
13. Developing Websites and/or Apps
Do you know how to code? Or are you interested in learning?
If so, you’ve got a one-way ticket to making money from anywhere.
And unlike the paid survey idea above, you can make good money.
In our digital world, more people and businesses than ever before want their own high-performing website or app. With the ability to code under your belt, you’re well on your way to being able to give it to them.
…Charging handsomely for it in the process.
14. Designing Websites
Prefer designing websites to building them?
Don’t worry, there are plenty of potential clients in this realm too!
Even better, you don’t even need to know how to code to make money online this way (although it’ll give you a significant competitive advantage if you do).
The downside? You’ll be paid much less than a developer.
15. Consulting
Anybody with expertise people want or need can earn a serious income online as a consultant.
From business and sales to IT and management, there are all sorts of different types of consulting you can do too.
Set yourself up a website, let people know you’re ready to help, and then start charging clients for your hard-earned insights (delivered via emails and video calls etcetera) on the topic in question.
16. Creating and Selling Courses
Looking for another way to monetize the specialist knowledge in your head?
Create a detailed, valuable course on the topic and start selling it to people (online, of course!) who want to learn!
Sites like Udemy and Teachable will help you build the course itself.
From there, it’ll be a matter of marketing it to would-be buyers.
Easier said than done, selling courses is one way to make money online UK that has the potential to generate serious sums of passive income, but that’s a definite challenge unless you already have a large audience.
17. Podcasting
If you love podcasts, then you’ll almost certainly have heard about Joe Rogan.
A huge name in the podcasting world, he recently sold the license to his podcast to Spotify for $100 million.
Clearly, making money with a podcast is a thing!
I can’t promise it’ll make you a millionaire, but you can certainly earn a good amount of money online through sponsors and advertisements (…when you start getting enough listeners to your show).
18. Transcribing
Landing a job as a transcriber would be another easy way to make money from home:
All you do is listen to audio files and type up the dialogue.
…And then get paid!
Sure, the ability to touch type (accurately) will be a major advantage and the salary might not be amazing. Otherwise, though, I can’t see many other barriers to entry!
19. Selling Your Photos
Professional photographers can make a killing online, selling their best shots to magazines, businesses, and so on.
However, anyone with a flair for taking photos can turn their passion into an income.
It won’t be the most lucrative side hustle you’ll come across, but why not upload your photos (and videos) to sites like Getty Images and Shutterstock? You’ll get paid every time someone downloads your content.
20. Selling On eBay
I remember when eBay was only used for flogging your old and unwanted items.
But many people now run successful multi-million-pound businesses on the platform!
And you can too! How?
By flipping.
Go to things like garden and car-boot sales, look for items that you know are selling on eBay for decent money, buy them at their crazily low prices, and then sell them on the platform for a profit.
Another option is to find items on eBay that you know sell well.
You’d then buy the same or similar ones from wholesalers for cheap per-unit prices (or get them shipped from China) and sell each product for a profit.
21. Selling On Amazon
Rewind a few years and selling on Amazon was my first hands-on experience of business!
Like anything, it sounds easier than it is in practice. But there’s no denying that it can be a lucrative way to make money online.
The process is very similar to what I just described for eBay selling.
You find items online or offline (in stores and garage sales etcetera) that sell on Amazon for considerably more than you have to pay for them.
You then list and sell them on the Amazon marketplace, reinvesting the profits to purchase more inventory.
As with eBay, getting accounts with wholesalers and selling your own private label products (i.e. sourcing pre-fab products, usually from China, and sticking your own logo on them) is also popular.
What’s cool about Amazon selling is that don’t even have to stock, pack, or ship the products yourself.
Thanks to their “Fulfilled by Amazon” (FBA) service, you pay them (via deductions from each sale) to store your products in their warehouses.
When someone purchases something, Amazon employees do the hard work of picking, packing, and shipping (plus handling customer service).
22. Performing Micro-Tasks
Computers are used more than ever now to complete mundane, repetitive tasks.
Yet there are still some jobs in this category that humans can do more efficiently than robots!
Things like data cleanup, data processing, image processing, and so on.
The trickier part’s often finding people to do them.
To address that issue, numerous services have been set up that connect people who have so-called “micro-tasks” to complete with other people willing to do them.
Sites like Clickworker and Mechanical Turk (MTurk) are two good examples.
If this seems like your kind of thing, then you can sign up with these services and pick and choose from the tasks available. I wouldn’t expect the money to be great, but you’ll get paid as soon as they’re done.
…And you can complete with from home, in your PJs, with a cup of tea in hand.
23. Lead-Generation Support
A “lead” is business lingo for “someone who might turn into a customer”.
For example, if I have a website that sells online courses, a lead would be someone who signs up to my newsletter, or registers for an introductory skype call.
To put it another way, a customer doesn’t start as a customer.
They start as a lead.
The result? Business owners are always on the lookout for new leads! If they don’t get them, they’re on a one-way ticket to closing down.
And that’s where you could come in…
Set yourself up as a freelance lead generation specialist and you can charge companies for supplying them with a steady supply of new potential customers!
24. Social Media Managing
Love social media?
Got a flair for posting awesome content and growing a following across the various SM platforms?
Consider marketing yourself as a social media manager.
You’d be in charge of planning, executing, and overseeing different company’s SM strategies! If you can grow their brand and generate sales, you’ll be in high-demand from the get-go.
25. Becoming an Influencer
Influencers have to have one of the cushiest ways to make money online ever!
Companies literally send them free stuff and pay big sums of money just to get access to their audience.
Depending on the agreement, all the influencer may have to do in exchange is post a few photos with the product or promote their brand on Instagram!
The downside?
Building a large and engaged (that bit’s super important) following is hard work, so it can take years before you ever earn a living online this way.
26. Freelance Bookkeeping
Anybody with a knack for numbers could take over the bookkeeping for a business or two, managing their accounts remotely.
Just make sure you’re qualified to do it!
I’m no expert on bookkeeping qualifications, but there’s almost certainly a certification you need before you can work (legally) in the field.
Get that first, get some the payroll software on your computer, and then start marketing your services to small businesses.
27. Selling Homemade Crafts on Etsy
Anyone who loves making arts and crafts could be one step away from a lucrative business on Etsy.
I don’t think it’d be straight-forward.
I definitely think there’s be lots of competition.
And I imagine you’d need really high-quality handmade stuff to sell.
Assuming none of those issues put you off, though, selling on Etsy is another popular and possible way to make money online in the UK.
28. Dropshipping
Thanks to things like Shopify and Facebook ads, the dropshipping business model seemed to take off a few years ago.
The idea’s simple:
You sell products via an online store, but don’t actually hold onto any stock.
Instead, the order goes straight through to a 3rd-party supplier, who sends the product to the customer for you.
In other words, you promote and sell other peoples’ stuff and take a cut off the top.
That means there’s no manufacturing, storage, picking, packing, or shipping to handle (…but far less profit too).
It’s a convenient business model with lots of potential. However, from what I’ve read, it’s definitely not easy (partly because the margins are low) and success definitely isn’t guaranteed.
29. Video Editing
Video content has skyrocketed in popularity in recent years.
People literally watch 1 billion hours of it on YouTube every single day! Then there’s Facebook videos and live streams, TikTok videos, and so on.
And, as more people consume videos, more people/businesses want to make them.
Here’s where the money-making opportunity comes in:
Not everybody who wants to publish video content has the skill, time, or inclination to edit their raw footage into high-quality, on-brand films/clips.
So, if you have a laptop, some video editing software, and a good creative eye, you could do it for them, making good money as you go.
30. Life Coaching
Good listener? Strong communicator? Love helping people?
…You could be a life coach!
Similar to therapy, coaches commonly do face-to-face, in-person sessions.
But I’m guessing online sessions are increasingly common too (especially since COVID).
So why not get a qualification, promote yourself on social media, tell your friends and family you’re taking on clients, and turn yourself into an online life coach!?
Time to Earn Money Online UK
I’d encourage anyone looking for more freedom and control over their time to dive headfirst into the wonderful world of working online.
Having done it for a while now, I can’t imagine ever going back to a typical 9-to-5!
If you’re a fellow Brit who’s been thinking of doing something similar, then I really hope this post has helped.
Pick and choose from these 30 ways to make money online UK and it shouldn’t be long before you’re earning a good income via the internet.
Got any questions, thoughts, or concerns about making money at home UK?
Drop a comment below and I’ll do my best to help!
Loved reading this! If you could help myself get started or show me the correct pathway for this, I would appreciate it greatly.