Hi all,

 

I'm moving back to the UK from Australia after 10 years. I'll be living in Suffolk for a few months and then after that will be looking to settle somewhere in England / Wales. I'm open to anywhere as long as it's preferably south of Manchester, so not too far from family.

 

I'm going to build sites on a freelance basis and I currently just develop e-commerce sites and this is something I want to carry on doing, though I'll consider most projects.

 

My question is which part of the country would I be able to get the most work? London and the South-East? Or would I be able to base myself somewhere cheaper and still get involved in the London market? I know you can work from anywhere but I've found (in Oz anyway) that most people/companies like to use a local web designer/developer. Any ideas on how I can research how saturated a market is in a particular area?

 

Any help or advice on this gratefully received.

If you do a search in google for something like web design suffolk then see the pages that are returned from google, this will give you a very vague general overview of how different areas compare to each other.

I have found that in my experience the only way to do work for someone who is not local to you is because they don't want an expensive london designer/developer to do something for them which someone cheaper could do just as good a job, this does sometimes work in reverse as well (people don't want something cheap, they want something quality and expensive).

Thanks for the reply. Think I need to get me a slice of the London market as I think it'll be slim pickings in Suffolka and Norfolk.

TBH, I wouldn't worry about the local area - most of my work comes from all around the UK and abroad. Network the living daylights out of yourself, and don't set yourself up as a 'web designer' - specialise in something, get a niche you can target with some comeback.

I've had it the other way - most of my work comes from remote locations. If you've gone to the effort of placing yourself in a specialised niche, it's must easier to find work and more clients are willing to work remotely with you. If you're not a 'web designer' and rather a 'Joomla developer' you've thinned the herd out sufficently.