What To Do If The UK Has A Third Lockdown

DISCLAIMER: This article is written from a British perspective.

Needless to say, the first lockdown hit the hardest, many non-essential businesses being forced to close, self-employed businesses such as hairdressing, forced to discontinue (didn't stop one woman from working during lockdown, show 'This Morning' ) It is predicted that life will not completely return back to normal, until the summer of 2021.

However what many people were not prepared for was the impact this global pandemic was gonna have on people's income who did not work in a pandemic-proof field such as tech, healthcare or certain retail positions like a cashier, store manager, supervisor or stock assistant in a high demand retail chain and so on. Every other kind of employee, felt the hit of the first lockdown the most. Most people only had one source of income (cooking in a restaurant, waiting tables or the likes) and did not have anything else to do for money, to support themselves. As expected many went into self-employment selling online, researching different ways they could work from home and make money online that were of a legitimate nature. This is what I will go into detail now.

Most of this article will be about self-employment opportunities, but if for any reason you want to work for someone else, I would advise getting into a pandemic-proof career, such as healthcare or tech for example.

For the non-entrepreneurs and employee's of the nation, depending on the sector you work in, for example hospitality, catering or retail, you may or may not have lost your job as a result of this pandemic and in this instance you can either look for similar work during this uncertain time, or learn new skills to get a better job, one where a pandemic will never affect your income, that's the purpose of this article that you may or may not finish reading. Also, please see the very end of this article if you are an employee of some sort, as my advice will most likely be able to help you.

Self-employment

There are a variety of websites that can both give you the skills you need to work freelance or learn a highly sought after skill or trade and a variety of websites that will employ you for those skills, that are legitimate websites.

Pros: These are best suited for people who want to work from home, as and when they want and not be tied down to one employer

Cons: Employment will likely be un-concrete and often temporary, until you find an employer who wants your work permanently.

- Fiverr: This is a website in which you can hire freelancers to do just about anything for you. You can pay someone to help you get more recognition on YouTube, someone who can create a website for your business, someone who can teach you fx trading, someone who can write a book, design promotional materials for your business, or someone who can teach you a skill - more on that later! You can also offer your services to others if you are a web developer, writer, editor, voice over artist, designer and so on.

- Upwork: Upwork is pretty much the same as Fiverr, just less aesthetically pleasing, but the layout is organised and it's a pretty straightforward website where you can either buy or offer the same services, you could on Fiverr. It differs slightly from Fiverr, in the sense that the competition seems to be a lot less, getting hired is easier but may take a few weeks, you have to have credits called 'connects' of which you get about 18 for free and the best part of Upwork is that employers can invite you to interviews for their selection process, saving you connects. And just like the latter, you can also hire people for writing, sales help, web development, photo editing and so on.

- PeoplePerHour: This is another freelance site however this one charges you. They have 3 options to join as a freelancer: you can join for free for the first 3 months in which you have 15 free proposal credits, unlimited offer posts and no featured posts, the next option is for £9.95 per month which offers you 150 free proposal credits, unlimited offers posts and 4 featured offers and then finally you have their payment offer which is £13.95 per month for 30 free proposal offers, unlimited offers posts and 1 featured offer. They offer all the same things as Upwork and Fiverr and operate similarly.

- Freelancer: This website is both to hire freelancers and work as a freelancer just like the former examples of freelance sites, except that you have to bid on jobs, set your desired pay amount, send a proposal and so on. When you run out of credits to bid on jobs, you will have to pay for more if you want to continue bidding on jobs. So if all this bidding and credits shenanigans is irritating for you, as it is for many, then maybe stick with sites like Fiverr, where everything is free when it comes to applying for jobs and contacting prospects.

There are many more such websites that you can work on if freelance work is for you.

1. Skills & Training

There are many education-based websites that offer completely free training, my personal favourite is Alison as it is all free, the only thing you have to pay for is your certificate. These are best for education right now as some places of education may close again, online learning isn't going anywhere however.

If you wish to learn any of the following: web development, app development, web design, becoming a nutritionist or dietician, customer service skills, physical therapy, care, nursing, marketing, herbology, medicine, holistic therapies, teaching, pet grooming, management, hospitality & catering skills, accounting, photography tourism and many more, then you may want to consider one of the below websites.

Alison

This site offers all of the things I mentioned in the above paragraph and more, what makes things even more exciting is that you can attain a diploma on their website. Take a look for yourself here: https://alison.com/diploma-courses

Reed

A lot of us in the UK probably use this site to apply for jobs, but did you know they offer courses too?

Their courses homepage acts as a directory of courses, where you can choose online, classroom or distance learning, part-time and full-time courses and they offer literally every possible course you or your whole neighbourhood could think of.

They offer GCSE courses, A-level courses, diploma courses, CPD accredited courses. They have beginner, intermediate and advanced level courses, undergraduate courses like bachelor's and honours degrees, the sky is the limit with this one, check out their courses directory here: https://www.reed.co.uk/courses/

Pro's: The variety and range of offers available at all different learning levels (secondary school, college, university and various certificates available upon completion).

Con's: Not knowing what you may want to choose, due to the wealth of options.

Learn Direct

learn-direct is the UK's largest course and training provider, providing that you can attend their classroom lessons for more serious courses, they do offer distance learning for many of their courses however.

If you didn't pass any compulsory subject in school, such as GSCE maths or English (or if you struggle with your English during this surreal time) then this is a great fit for you education wise, but they have useful skills for the self employed, such as psychology, fortune telling, holistic therapies, accounting and business studies.

Whilst they are the UK's largest provider of courses and training, they're large in the sense that they have many learning centres distributed across the UK, however their range is not as broad as the other aforementioned course websites.

If you wish to revise the more basic skills in life, or simply want to learn something interesting, visit their website here: https://www.learndirect.com/

Learning Centres: Every London borough has an adult learning centre, where you can gain any skills from employability, to fashion designing, my nearest adult learning centre would be Redbridge Adult Learning Centre and what makes it even better is that it can be fit around your daily activities as well, as most of these learning centres have evening and night classes.

Check out your local adult learning centre here: https://www.google.com/search?q=adult+learning+centre+london+boroughs&oq=adult+learning+centre+london+boroughs&aqs=chrome..69i57.7154j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

If you're outside of London (smart choice if you are, it's cheaper that way) then perhaps the other options are better for you.

2. Take advantage of YouTube

Literally everything you could possibly ever want to know, is on YouTube, after all, YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world, after Google. If you want to learn to play the guitar, piano, harp or trombone, YouTube's got you covered. You wanna learn how to be a better salesperson for your business or just to sell yourself as a freelancer, self-employed person or what have you? YouTube's got you covered.

You can learn a bunch of different skills on YouTube.

Bigger non-essential businesses

If you are a bigger non-essential business like a family-run restaurant or takeaway establishment, if you're a burger van owner or run your own market, we will now look at some ways to keep your income steady and not let this pandemic get to you too much.

- Restaurants: You need to print out promotional materials to let people know they can order takeaway from your restaurant, put a notice on your windows saying takeaway available or something of the likes, you also want to get someone to go around and hand out these promotional flyers and leaflets letting people know that you're available for takeaway, put your business on Deliveroo, just eat and Uber Eats, that way people who are searching for the cuisine that you restaurant offers, will be more likely to come across your restaurant and order from you.

Open your restaurants for people to sit outside only, it is cold right now, but that doesn't stop people from going to bars and clubs, you know? Before the pandemic. However if we have a 3rd lockdown, depending on when it is and for how long it lasts, it won't be the same.

- Flea markets: If you haven't already, it's time to put your stuff online, here's where you can start:

The Facebook marketplace, eBay, Amazon, wish.com, cute.wish.com, Vinted, Shpock and Gumtree. If you have extra money to spare, you could also post some of your stuff on sites as a featured post, so that more people see it, therefore increasing your chances of making a sale.

- Casual workers and all other kind of general staff type jobs (waitressing/waitering, serving drinks etc...)

For those of you in this field, perhaps start thinking about any skills you may have that you could profit from, or look for easy freelance jobs you could do from home such as:

• Being a captioner (rev.com)
• Being a transcriber (Transcribe Me)
• Being a freelance writer (fiverr.com, upwork.com, simplehired.co.uk)
• Being a business consultant (peopleperhour.com, upwork.com, indeed.co.uk)
• Doing affiliate marketing (learn more about this on YouTube)
• Being an Uber driver (https://www.uber.com/gb/en/drive/)
• Being a Bolt. Driver (https://partners.bolt.eu/driver-signup/?lang=en)
• Being a Kapten Driver (https://become.kapten.com/)
• Working for Amazon Flex (https://flex.amazon.co.uk/lets-drive)
• Working as a chat operator/customer service assistant (https://www.bestofbudgets.com/best-live-chat-operator-jobs-from-home/)

The list goes on, but I'll stop there and refer you to a few websites listing a plethora of ways you could take advantage of this time of career instability for you:

#1 - https://skintdad.co.uk/genuine-work-from-home-jobs-uk/

#2 - https://www.projectfinanciallyfree.com/genuine-work-from-home-jobs/

#3 - https://www.simplyhired.co.uk/search?q=work+at+home&job=4LUG9yyMavUb98VTCZOPMVEmItJIPiC7Lu260DUHcTGYHxrgLEy2ug

So I think this article would be a great place for you to start. What do you think? If you appreciated this article and I have helped you in any way, please consider leaving a tip or sharing this article to someone who may need to see it.

Thanks for reading!