10 Creative Ways to Make Money Online in the UK

Are you looking for creative ideas how to make money online in the UK doing work that you enjoy without having to invest much?

In this article I will be revealing the most in-demand money making ways for creatives in Great Britain to inject some extra cash into your bank account. Because as a copywriter I know that creative content creation is booming on the web.

No matter whether you’re in full-time or part-time employment, a student, or a pensioner, with these flexible work from home ideas that are a legit inspiration worth testing.

If you are a stay-at-home mum or dad or a student looking for a side hustle, then you may also find the online money-making methods useful.

You’ll be pleased to know that these work at home jobs can be quite lucrative too and easy to discover via online job search engines.

They may not make much money to start with, but with time you can generate a decent income from them that can pay some bills.

No need for expensive equipment, all you need to get started is a laptop and good internet connection and you’re off to start earning online.

It takes minimal funds to start making money online and the return can be huge.

Are you a book worm? Or do you simply just enjoy creating something that people can read, colour in, or use to tickle their brains? Then designing, authoring, and publishing eBooks is a great way to make some extra money.

You could create a guide about any topic such as nutrition, beauty, or business as anything goes. With at least 100,000 self-published books on Kindle alone and numbers constantly rising, this is becoming a lucrative option for many.

Self-publishing is not difficult these days and once you get the hang of it, you can also offer it as a service to earn extra cash.

Choose a type of book first of all to understand the format of the book. A novel is completely different from a travel guide. The book topic then follows, and you should do a bit of research beforehand about what people are interested in or want to know about your topic.

💰 It is difficult to say how much money you can make with eBook publications as this can greatly vary, but some Amazon Kindle authors make thousands to millions with their eBooks that they produce, publish and market. You can learn more about eBook publication and marketing here.

Graphic designers are high in demand by businesses, organisations and even private people looking for business cards, logos, brochures, or websites, blogs, social media posts and the likes to be designed professionally.

As a graphic designer you can also support book publishers, with book illustrations and designs or marketers and agencies with designing marketing materials.

You can easily get your first gigs from online job platforms like Upwork or PeoplePerHour.

You should begin to build a website or WordPress Blog so that prospective clients can gather as much about your experience and skills as possible online. To market yourself more effectively your own website can help you approach prospective clients via email or social media marketing. A website certainly offers many benefits to showcase your work by displaying case studies, client reviews and much more. After you’ve set up your own website, you can also run Google Ads or Facebook Ads to target certain groups more effectively.

💰 Graphic designers hired in the UK get paid per hour or based on the project at hand. Usually, their hourly rates range from £11-£25*.

Are you a Hollywood fan writing your own movie scripts? Or do you stream Netflix all day? The media and TV industries are always on the lookout for creative scriptwriters with fresh and trending TV show formats or film narratives.

Even music videos or YouTube channel productions require written scripts these days so, if you have a passion for drama, literature, and storytelling, you can start to promote your services online.

However, this is a tough business to get your foot into the door and networking is key. Build your online presence with a simple online portfolio and share your case studies via social media to gain more attention. As a scriptwriter, you must be prepared to give up the copyrights to all scripts you’ve been paid for; you can’t use the same content for different clients.

If you’re new to this industry you can take free screenwriting courses to get started without any investment.

💰 Financially you might struggle in the beginning only earning £18,000* a year, but once you’ve made it you can take home up to £80,000* p.a. or more in the UK.

If you’re into filming short clips, screen recording your online activities or creating promotional or tutorial videos you can get into videography or video editing for companies and freelancers. Most clients will want to see past experience with video production or editing, so you could begin by filming smaller events or videos to build up your portfolio and hone your skills, which include computer literacy, animation, creativity & imagination, use of different cameras and familiarity with graphic and editing software.

The video editing can be done in the comfort of your home, but you will need good equipment, which you can rent to start with to keep your cost according to your budget. Use a high-quality video camera and microphone and lighting equipment.

As a video editor you can make use of freelance websites to get gigs and promote your own website.

💰 You can earn anything from $38,520 (£18,000) a year to $115,960 (£36,000+)* a year with videography work

If you’re a talented musician or simply enjoy playing a music instrument, you can teach students how to play it, sing vocals, compose, and write songs, etc. You can make money from home offering music lessons online. You can create a YouTube channel and post your video lessons. Link it to your tutor website so that anyone looking to learn can find and contact you directly.

Additionally, you can advertise your services or get hired on music tutor platforms. Different platforms offer different tutoring rates so ensure you compare them first.

💰 You can earn an annual income of £19,000 to £42,000* in the UK depending on hourly rates, qualifications and expertise.

Having a social media presence is almost as important as having a mobile number these days. However, to manage multiple social media accounts can be extremely time-consuming and once are more proficient, you can offer additional online marketing services like Facebook Ad or Instagram Ad campaigns where you can plan and maintain a social media content calendar and engage on behalf of the business on social media.

No specific qualification is required, but many employers expect to see proof of your social media skills. They will also ask for experience with social media management tools and creating and running paid ads.

Creating visually engaging and attractive media posts can require an eye for trends, data analysis and ad copy skills.  So, if you’d like to set up social media accounts, design and plan a regular number of posts with relevant keywords, you would have to investigate how much this will cost and plan according to the budget provided.

💰 Starting out in social media consulting may earn you around £20,000* p.a. in the UK, but there’s no limit to what you can earn at the top as big companies will pay very well for top-notch social media marketing.

As more people have a blog or website, more web designers are required. You can learn to code online for free and start offering your web design services such as designing web pages for clients, adding e-commerce functions, animations etc. Basic SEO skills and frontend and backend database management skills are equally important to become a top online address for web design.

Initially, you can build a portfolio with case studies you’ve worked on via various blogging platforms. Experiment and learn while you work on web designing projects.

💰 A web designer in the UK can earn up to £41,000* a year in employment. You could first do a few web design gigs or work for a company part-time to have a regular income while you develop your skills.

Blogging has become a lucrative avenue to earn money online. If you enjoy writing regularly and posting content on trending topics, you’re passionate about then you can easily set up a blog. But it’s not enough to just publish blog articles as a successful blogger, you must strive to build a robust following and have your blogs read or shared as much as possible in order to earn money from blogging through affiliate marketing, product promotions, guest posting, and so on.

You might ask yourself how to start a blog and it’s far less complicated than you might think. You can begin by choosing a niche for your blog such as travel, fitness, health, finance, technology, cooking, you name it. Don’t worry if you have no prior experience in blogging, you can find plenty of expert tutorials on YouTube or the SeekaHost University.

If you use WordPress for your blog, you can set it up in less than 5 minutes with the SeekaPanel. Watch this video to discover how quick and easy it is:

💰 Bloggers earn in different ways like as an Amazon Affiliate you can earn 4-8% commissions for every sale through your website and there are many other ways you can monetize a website, which you can learn more about here.

There are billions of websites out there and every day some are being registered and some are being dropped.

Domains can become very valuable, depending on their backlink profile and domain history and authority. People search for good, branded domains that are keyword rich with catchy domain names.

If you can find good, expired domains via domain auction platforms, you may be able to purchase them at a bargain price and sell them again for a much higher price after you have built it to a level that attracts a good amount of traffic.

When purchasing a domain, you need to establish its possible value and you should also consider a dot com domain for international sales rather than a country-specific extension like .co.uk. However, if you would like to focus on a website that is attractive to the UK market, then this extension is more suitable.

💰 The so-called domaining business is growing and can be very lucrative. You can learn more about how domain auctions and domain sales work in this domaining guide.

The Internet is seeing the rise of online platforms that offer exclusive membership only content where payable fees apply to access the content created by its authors or owners.

Creative minds can establish an inner-circle community on platforms like Patreon and OnlyFans, subscription-based websites that allow the account user to monetize their exclusive content they only share with their subscribers that have paid access.

Such platforms have seen a big surge throughout the pandemic going from 7.5 million users to 85 million in March 2020. Content creators can share anything via their channels ranging from online classes to live streams about any topic under the sun.

So, how do you earn money with your exclusive content?

Content creators determine a subscription cost for their channel which ranges from $3 to $100 per month on average. As their community and content grows so increases their subscription fee and subscribers can give a tip of up to $100 per day. The platforms don’t really set any limitations on the creator’s fee policies. Creators can charge additional fees of up to $50 per day for so-called “exclusive” or “bonus” content to existing subscribers. 

The most popular ways to make money on these platforms is to create and post content like photos, videos and live streams. Depending on the platform’s policies, content creators take away 80-95% of their account revenue and the platform keeps 5-20% (this will depend on the type of account creators choose). 

It is important to bear in mind that a high revenue can only be achieved with a big organic following, which often relies on already having a successfully built online and social media presence to entice those followers to pay for the exclusive content. However, if you do manage to achieve that, then you can become a millionaire with exclusive content.

💰 The top earners on these content platforms made around $20 million every month in early 2021 according to OnlyFans and Patreon, which includes celebrities and influencers.

Summing Up

Hopefully you will now be inspired to test some creative online money-making methods in the UK to discover how much extra cash you can earn via your laptop or smartphone without having to step out of your house. Utilize the opportunities and options the internet provides you with and use your talent and creativity wisely. Because only if you pick one that is suitable and beneficial for you, will you be able to earn from it in the long term. Don’t go for quick solutions like paid surveys, but rather learn additional digital skills and build something for the future.

*all salary/income estimations are based on information retrieved in April 2020 from https://www.payscale.com/.