grantsmith

I noticed it getting harder since about 2010 (I've been web dev'ing since 1998), before that finding new work was pretty easy and I was turning down more work than I took on. I put it down to there being more competition and the rise of hosted services such as Squarepsace and Shopify. Fortunately my speciality area meant I still had enough work even if I was a bit less picky with clients!
So I'd suggest:
1. Advertise your services locally in local periodicals, village magazines and the like to get your name out there
2. If you have a speciality get in touch with local dev agencies to see if they can offer overflow work
3, Get some business cards made and give to anyone you meet

Or change what you do.
I stopped building websites years ago and started building wordpress plugins. Find your niche and it is very lucrative.
As an example, the are over 7 million active installs of woocommerce. 0.001% of this is 700. If you built a premium plugin that sold for £50/year that would earn you £35,000/year. It's almost free money.