For the first time since the 2008 recession, I found myself on LinkedIn wondering if I could stretch my talents to copyediting for a shoe brand, in addition to the two other jobs I already do. Nothing wrong with copyediting at all, except that I’m not very good at it, and the last time I did it, it was after being unemployed for a year. But with rising mortgage rates, electricity bills, food costs – even my gym is getting in on the act – along with no wage increases, having multiple jobs, including one that comes with a guaranteed pay cheque, is becoming the norm.
This isn’t a sign that things have suddenly gone wrong for me – they’ve been going wrong for a while. I’m not alone. A trifecta of unemployment rates rising by 5 per cent, job vacancies falling to their lowest level in five years and slowing wage growth means that things are tough all-round.
Data from the Office for National Statistics show roughly 1.3 million people in the UK currently have a second job, which is a slight decline from the 1.35 million people recorded in 2025. But I believe there is a missing piece of data: the overlap between those already in solo employment who are having to take on multiple jobs to pay the bills and those who are in paid employment trying to set up businesses.
