‘I love the freedom that comes with being self-employed’: photographer Douglas Kurn and his partner Hazel Watters TOM STOCKILLWhen Douglas Kurn quit his 15-year career in sales to strike out on his own at the age of 32, he was taking a leap of faith to pursue his passion for photography. However, it also meant leaving behind all the benefits of being employed by a FTSE 100-listed company — from the pension to sick pay and access to a cycle-to-work scheme. Kurn is one of 4.85m self-employed people in the UK, according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) — up 88,000 over the past year. Accounting for 15% of the entire workforce, their ranks have been swollen by the growing number of people in the “gig economy”, who work for companies such as Deliveroo and Uber.

Source: The Times September 30, 2017 23:00 UTC