Quick Answer
How many people use Upwork in 2025?
There are more than 12 million registered freelancers and approximately 5 million clients on Upwork.
Let’s find out how many people use Upwork in 2025.
Freelancing is becoming highly attractive for workers as it promises greater freedom in time and location.
Today, Upwork is the largest work marketplace platform around the world, connecting clients with freelance agencies and individual talents across different fields.
This popular freelancing platform is an all-in-one place where talents can secure contracts directly from clients.
Upwork’s 2021 report reveals the company had a remarkable year and hit $3.5 billion in gross services volume, with revenue growing 35% to $503 million in 2021.
How Many People Use Upwork in 2025?
For those who are curious how many people use Upwork, here is the answer.
At present, there are more than 12 million registered freelancers and approximately 5 million clients on Upwork.
In 2020, there are over 145,400 core clients who spend around $5,000 each year.
Among the countries using Upwork, the United States, India, and the Philippines contribute the most.
These three countries account for 51.57% of Upwork’s total freelancer revenue, while other countries contributed 48.43% to the total revenue which is equivalent to $109.8 million.
The revenue of Upwork comes mostly from freelancers.
Together, they contribute around two-thirds of its total revenue, but clients such as enterprises and SMEs also incur charges from administration and payment processing fees, service costs, membership, and currency exchange charges.
History of Upwork
Upwork is a freelancing platform formerly known as Elance-oDesk.
It was named after the Elance Inc. and oDesk Corp. merger. Elance Inc. was founded in 1998 in Jersey City as an employment platform for short-term jobs.
Meanwhile, oDesk came later in 2003 as a staffing company and eventually became an online marketplace where users can search, hire, and team up with remote workers.
In 2015, the platform was rebranded as “Upwork” which concurred with an upgrade of oDesk under a similar name.
In the same year, it went through brief outages which led to an apology from its CEO, Stephane Kasriel, and this directed to the introduction of an Upwork Status page that offers greater transparency to its clients and freelancers.
In 2017, the company reported around 14 million users across 180 countries with over three million job opportunities worth more than $1 billion.
The following year, the company filed for an initial public offering and sold at $15 per share. Today, its per share price is trading at $17.50.
What is Upwork?
Upwork is the largest work marketplace for independent professionals and talents around the world.
It serves as a network between freelancers and clients from SMEs and businesses in various fields including development and IT, sales and marketing, admin and customer support, engineering and architecture, design and creative, writing and translation, finance and accounting, and legal.
How Does Upwork Work?
Clients in Upwork find freelancers and assign projects to the chosen talent.
When finding freelancers, clients will post job positions on the platform and will wait for proposals from talented individuals.
Upwork will help its clients shortlist the best candidates to fit the posted job through advanced algorithms.
After shortlisting, clients will check the shortlisted freelancers’ profiles, reviews, and portfolios and may schedule an interview before the contract signing.
Aside from posting job opportunities and hiring talents, clients may also browse and shop for projects that are already planned.
They are no longer required to post for job offers and sift from the shortlist. They just need to browse, shop and start right away.
Upwork Pro
Another way a client may take when hiring the best candidate is to take the fast lane to the Upwork Pro.
Clients will compromise on their goals and budget while Upwork will do the recruitment for them through providing a shortlist of the best candidates in the pool.
Upwork Fees
Freelancers and talents search and find the right work in Upwork.
Before sending proposals, talents need to create an eye-catching and client-focused profile to achieve the best match with the client’s qualifications.
After getting a job, they need to choose how they will be paid.
The platform will charge them the service fees according to the earnings to every client.
20% service fee for the first $500, while 10% service fee for total billings between $500.01 and $10,000, and a 5% service fee for total billings over $10,000.
There will be no fees until they complete the assigned project.
Upwork Revenue
Based on the 2020 Upwork report, the top three freelancing countries that used the platform and produced the most revenue on the freelancer side are the United States, India, and the Philippines.
Roughly 3,611 companies are using this platform and these companies are mostly from the United States and in the IT industry.
Some of the companies are Search Engine Optimization, Inc., Investopedia, LLC, Valtech SE, and Blackfriars Group.
Take a look at Upwork’s revenue over the years:
- 2016 – the platform generated $166 million in annual revenue
- 2017 – the platform generated $202 million in annual revenue
- 2018 – the platform generated $235 million in annual revenue
- 2019 – the platform generated $300 million in annual revenue
- 2020 – the platform generated $373 million in annual revenue
List of Top Jobs Listed in Upwork
Most of the hottest jobs and top skills listed in Upwork are from the Information Technology and Service industry since there are thriving opportunities in the IT and technological innovation field.
Here is the list of Upwork’s most in-demand jobs and skills in 2021:
2. Automation
3. Data Analytics Skills
4. Mobile Application Skills
5. Virtual Reality Skills
6. Video Production
7. Search Engine Optimization
8. Product Management
9. Data Entry
10. Web and App Development
11. Bookkeeping
12. Content Writing
Average Age of Freelancers
According to research, the average age of 9,776 freelancers in the United States is 37 years old.
Indian freelancers are mostly between 18 to 34 years old, while the majority of Filipino freelancers are under 35 years old.
Anyone with ages 18 years and above can start freelancing. It does not matter if a freelancer is older, experience and skills are more important.
Conclusion
According to the Upwork press release, freelancing will occupy a major workforce in the United States by 2027.
The number of skilled talents and freelancers continuously increase every year, and most of the freelancers of the platform are aged 37 years and below.
This comes as more and more workers put great value on a workplace setup where they are given the right freedom they need, which is not normally available on traditional 9-to-5 jobs.
Thanks for reading our article on how many people use Upwork in 2025.
