How is the frontend developer on Upwork doing now?

Question

Upwork

I've been with Upwork for over 5 years. A coder, in addition to knowledge of html / css, there is also basic knowledge of Javascript, PHP just a little bit, which allows you to take on all kinds of work, for example, creating Wordpress themes. Well, just the basics of React, Angular - purely at the layout level. The rate is $25 per hour. Each month the salary is different, but the average per month is $1100-$1200.
For the last year, it has been very difficult to get orders, either they do not answer at all, or they take Indians for $ 3-4 per hour. This despite the fact that I'm looking for a purely "rich" countries, such as the US, UK, and so on. I keep thanks to old customers, new zaki appear a maximum of once every 1-2 months. I write down the salary every month, keep records and see that this year it is falling.
How are you doing on Upwork? Am I writing a bad Cover Letter or is the situation really getting worse? Where else can you look for remote work?
ps Perhaps I have the wrong approach to finding a job, I configured the Search filter incorrectly. My current filter looks like this: + country restrictions.

Answer 1

My grandfather worked as a coachman 50 years ago, there were a lot of orders, but now everything is sad ... For some reason, coachmen are not really needed (There are only car drivers everywhere (((
But seriously. In my opinion, you don’t understand how it works current market. Take the place of the customer, who needs layout now? The answer is almost no one. Unless studios that do some kind of project and their layout designer does not cope / does not have time, then yes, you will be hired for a couple of pages. Now everyone needs full-fledged front-end developers who can communicate with both JS and back.Now it
is far from 2010, when the site consisted of one layout and sending a letter with an application to the mail.Now there is a ton of everything you need to know.

Answer 2

1. Your skills are lagging behind the market. Now pure layout is not required so often, and yes, pure HTML / CSS of a tolerable level can be obtained for $ 10 from the same Indians. Hindu Hindu strife, there are good developed.
2. Your bid is too high for "layout only". Yes, it is quite possible that the quality of your layout is absolutely honestly worth those $25/hour, but purely psychologically and subjectively, the client is already waiting for a frontend developer or even a fullstack developer for this money. The market itself leads him to this idea.
3. If you want to freelance (upwork or not upwork - it doesn't matter) to earn steadily and grow in earnings - focus on long-term contracts and clients. These are either clients who constantly come with new projects (for example, studios / agencies - a conveyor), or support / maintenance of projects that you have done for a client. After a couple of years of active work on upwork, you should have at least 60% of your earnings from supporting existing projects. Ideally, clients should pay a fixed fee monthly + additional work for a separate fee. With a competent approach, the same 1000-1500 per month will drip only from these fixed fees, and you will spend a minimum of time on them. And already all additional work will bring you additional income on top of these 1000-1500. At the same time, you almost do not sag in income, if you suddenly stopped doing active bids for a while. But to do that, you need to go beyond HTML/CSS, because that's where you're limiting yourself. It is extremely rare for your layout to be exposed in production as-is, as a rule, another developer then turns it into some kind of dynamic template. And from now on, there is no product left that you can support.
4. Add new skills to your stack. If you still prefer to typeset, learn how to type "into templates" right away - WordPress themes, Drupal themes, Laravel Blade templates, Symfony Twig templates, etc.

Answer 3

Of course, the value of just a layout designer is falling, why are you surprised? Get new knowledge and use it.

Answer 4

Soon upwork will make sites for free, so that only a review is left))

Answer 5

No, your knowledge is outdated and cheaper
Exit to study and ask for more
Work more but cheaper

Answer 6

Therefore, many prefer an office to develop, rather than a swamp in the form of freelance

Answer 7

Life hack. Look for jobs not on Upwork, but on job search sites. Just set the filters remote work, free schedule and look for orders.

Answer 8

Re-qualify as a react-decoder, add this skill to upwork)) there is only jsx, instead of html, it will not hurt)

Answer 9

Hi, when things go badly for someone, there is someone who does well, most likely you are doing something wrong, can you give an example of your Cover Letter? And some statistics, how many CLs you write, how many people answer you, how many contracts you take.

Answer 10

Maybe lazy? )
Well, in general, the whitewash bubble is likely to burst like any other, the only question is when