creative industry freelancers
are struggling.

68%* of freelancers saw poor mental health
negatively impacting their ability to work in 2025

40%* of freelancers felt their
mental health decline in 2025

* Leapers, 2026

This hurts freelancers.

• ↓ Productivity – direct impact on ability to work
• ↓ Wellbeing – physical and emotional impact and isolation
• ↓ Finances – decline in income and stability
• ↓ Skills – lack of investment in training and development

This hurts businesses.

• ↑ Project Costs – tangible negative impact on delivery
• ↓ Productivity – decline in focus and efficacy
• ↓ Creativity – decline in quality of outputs
• ↓ Expertise – loss of talent from workforce

And the industry is increasingly shifting to a core+freelance model.

Today, around 32%* of the creative industry is freelance.
Nearly half** of CEOs say they are increasing the use of contractors.

* DCMS, 2025
** Upwork, 2026

We all want to do better for our people but freelancers fall between the cracks.

We get it.
Supporting freelancers can be a challenge.

IR35, capacity, capability, accountability. It's challenging to get right for people you don't have legal obligation towards.

But if we rely upon these people to deliver for us… Can we risk preventing them from being able to work well?

And when 96% of freelancers say they'll avoid clients who didn't support them to work well.

Can you afford to not?

For 8+ years, Leapers has been supporting freelancers' mental health, and we've helped over 250,000 people.

Now it's time for you to join in.

Leapers is looking for creative leaders to work with us, demonstrating real change.

We're not asking you to put on free pizza and wellbeing days for freelancers.

Just a few small changes that lead to positive outcomes.

Everything we suggest is based upon a stepped approach:
"Signpost to Support", "Do No Harm" and "Modern Mindsets"

We'd work together on one or more incremental steps:

1. Signpost to support
   The very least we're asking all employers to do: including signposting to good quality resources in their onboarding for freelancers.
   
   Around two-thirds of freelancers don't know where look for support as a freelancer - and we can all play a part in closing this gap. We'll help you with links to resources, and how to create a good onboarding.
2. Share what you're already doing.
   We want to capture and share examples of what good looks like - to demonstrate the positive commercial and cultural impact of supporting freelancers.
   
   We'll both celebrate those who are already doing brilliant work, and help others learn how they can make improvements.
3. Commit to the Freelance Friendly policy
   Our ten point policy is a useful framework to communicate how you're doing today, and what areas of improvement you're looking to make tomorrow.
   
   Even if you can't demonstrate you're delivering on every point yet - it creates a statement of intent, transparency for your collaborators, and a blueprint for improvement.
4. Establish a baseline
   Gather impartial feedback from those you're working with, identify existing costs and drags in your process, evaluate your current ROI and reputation, and put numbers against your current ways of working with freelancers, in order to see improvements over time.
   
   If nothing else, having real data against your reputation and relationships helps understand if you have access to the workforce you think you do.
5. Implement a roadmap for change
   Identifying the key improvements you wish to make, and clear internal accountability and reporting on making those changes.
   
   This will vary for every organisation, but going being a pledge is essential to see meaningful change, and to truly benefit from a fluid workforce.

Click to learn about each step in more detail.

If you can only DO ONE THING:

Signpost your freelancers to our
support and resources portal.

We can get you set up on workwellwith.us in a few minutes.
There's no cost to get started.

Most of this comes with minimal cost
and incremental benefit.

To your ROI and reputation,
and your freelancers' work and wellbeing.

The moment for manifestos has passed.
The time for pledges has passed.

Make 2026 the year you become Freelance Friendly.

Sign up to support.