2025 Freelance Year in Review

2025 was my first full year working freelance. It was... quite a ride.

This post is a reflection on how things went and what my goals are for 2026. I also share a breakdown of the revenue I made in 2025 – because we don't talk enough about money, and we should.

Why freelancing?

I actually decided to take the freelance route back in 2023, at the end of a 3-month career break. But after just a few months, the International Center for Journalists invited me to be a Knight Fellow, and the freelance experience was paused.

I decided to freelance because of the freedom and flexibility, but especially because I was hoping it would allow me to work with people I admire. It did.

I never thought of myself as someone who'd end up being an entrepreneur. (I still don't.) But during the fellowship I prototyped this thing called News Alchemists, and at the start of 2025 I was curious to see what I could turn it into.

Could I make enough money, and avoid succumbing to the anxiety that stems from not having a stable income, by working on interesting projects with interesting people and slowly building something of my own?

One year later, the jury is still out.

Interesting projects with interesting people? Check.

Make enough money? Sort of.

Avoid succumbing to the anxiety? Well...

The downs and the ups

In his own Year in Review¹ (which inspired this post), freelance graphic designer Brent Galloway wrote: "what’s never talked about in freelancing is that you live in a state of perpetual instability." The fear of not knowing where the next paycheck will come from, and when, becomes "a constant burden".

In the last part of 2025, that burden felt very heavy. When the big projects I started the year with ended over the summer, my insecurities took centre stage.

How will I find new projects? When? What if I make no money next month? Should I be marketing myself more? Why would anyone want to work with me? What do I even have to offer?

The last question at least prompted a necessary phase of reflection: I've always worn many hats at work – project manager, learning experience designer, coach, facilitator. Trying to figure out what ties together everything I do led me to formulate a sort of personal mission statement:

I help people and organisations understand themselves, their audience and their purpose.

Gaining clarity about the mission was an achievement that I trust will pay dividends in Year 2. But clarity alone won't make the freelancing more sustainable.

In 2025, I said yes to too many small things (sure, let's have a chat; I'm going to sign up for another newsletter, why not) and stretched my attention too thin. I failed to build healthy habits and routines – and, as a result, focus often eluded me to worrying degrees.

What kept me grounded more than anything was writing a weekly newsletter. No matter how chaotic and unstable a week could be, I didn't want to disappoint hundreds of people who were waiting to receive an email from me the following Tuesday.

When I write, I reach that mythical state of flow, the holy grail of knowledge workers – at least for a few minutes. And the more I experience it, the more of it I crave.

And there's more: the newsletter has already opened up a new, tiny but promising, revenue stream. So let's talk about money.

How did I make money freelancing in 2025?

I didn't make as much as I had hoped. Slightly less than what I made in 2022, the last entire year on a full-time job.

But for being my first year of full-time freelancing, it wasn't too bad. And it would have been even better if the value of the dollar didn't plummet in 2025. (I'm based in London, UK, but 70% of my 2025 revenue was paid in USD.)

Here's the monthly revenue breakdown.

(Amounts are gross revenue before taxes, in GBP, and they counted in the month when the work was performed, not when I received the payments.)

What that chart doesn't show is the different revenue streams, and that's where the story gets more interesting:

Client work was the main source of revenue (72%).

The 13% made from collaborative projects could be counted as client work as well (making it 85%), but I want to keep it separate to represent the difference between projects that started with a client asking "Can you do this for us?", and projects that I actively contributed to imagine, design, and deliver.

Almost 9% came from the last weeks of work on the Knight Fellowship, which ended in February 2025. This is revenue I can't count on in 2026.

And lastly, the revenue stream that was the smallest but also the one that show the most promise: the 5.6% that resulted from my work on News Alchemists (newsletter sponsorships, donations, and speaking engagements). This intrigues me for two reasons:

1. This money was not meant to exist. I never thought I'd be able to make money with the newsletter in its first year. But I did. And that builds confidence.
2. As a revenue stream, this is fully in my hands. It doesn't depend on someone else having a project they need help with and deciding I'm the person who can help them. It only depends on me creating something valuable for my audience, not someone else's. And that's exciting.

2026 Goals

Year 2 starts with even more uncertainty than Year 1.

As I write this, I only have one project that's continuing from 2025; I'm talking with two potential clients about assignments that may or may not happen; and I'll have to wait for the end of January to know if a big project I'm hoping to work on will get funded.

The upside is that I have proper time to work on News Alchemists and figure out how I can grow the newsletter and offer new products and services that could be of value to my audience.

The goal for 2026 is to double the impact of that work: from 5% to 10% of my revenue.

To account for additional expenses I'll have this year (I'm getting married, and weddings cost... a lot), I also aim to increase my total revenue by at least 14% compared to 2025.

Beyond the numbers, my goal for 2026 is to find more stability, not only in the work I manage to secure but also within myself. More ups and less downs. More flow and less distraction. Am I aiming too high?

I don't know if this was useful or if I should have just written it in my notebook. But I talk a lot about building in public, so writing this post felt right.

If you have questions or want to share your own freelance story, hit me up.

And if you need help with a project this year, let's talk.

¹ https://www.brentgalloway.me/blog/2025-review

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