Economic uncertainty and tech-driven acceleration requires capturing every business opportunity by maximizing full-time employees’ skills supported by complementary talent and tools to fill gaps, guide, and augment capabilities.

“The UK’s digital economy is rapidly accelerating and seemingly at a faster rate than the workforce can keep up with." — Richard Hanscott, CEO of Esendex.

The final, fifth core transformative modern work shift is to develop an updated, blended workforce—of full-time, part-time, fractional/twinned, freelance, and digital talent—integrating tech skills with human-centric emphasis.

Combining capabilities and capacity with employment and deployment flexibility is paramount to pivot and respond rapidly to changes and challenges.

COMPANIES seek effective use of the extended talent pool and new technologies to enables responsiveness to customers’ changing demands:

• 18,347% global surge in AI agent-related freelance services searches, 19,033% rise in Germany [​Fiverr Business Trends Index​, May 2025].
• 60% y-o-y growth in AI-related work on ​Upwork​'s platform 2024-25.
• 78% of UK C-suite leaders using AI agents in their firms [​The Times​].
• 42% of UK firms supplement their teams with flexible talent.
• 37% of companies plan to set up a dedicated human team to manage their agentic AI deployment [​The Times re Gravitee 2025​].
• 150% growth in 'fractional twinning' of C-Suite roles (CFO, CMO, CHRO) since 2020 in UK and Ireland [​CFO Centre​].

WORKERS perform best given autonomy and work that fits current/new skills and seek financial stability including employment options with income diversity.  

• 28% of U.S. knowledge workers are freelancing generating $1.5 trillion in earnings in 2024 [​Upwork​ Research Institute].
• 18% UK 16-26 year olds surveyed cite self-employed and freelance careers as more stable than full time employment and 15% believe there is ‘less chance to be replaced by AI or laid off’ [Fiverr]
• 4.38 million self-employed in the UK freelancing across industries [​"UK Freelancers Are Driving the Workforce in 2025" PeoplePerHour​]
• £708/day for top 10% of UK freelance contracts, up 9% from previous year averaging 89 working days.
• Strategy consultants £520/day, market research £491, data £469, UX £425, developer £438. [​YunoJuno Freelancer Rates Report 2025​]

"The real edge lies in human-AI collaboration, where trust and results outperform those achieved by AI alone. Clients continue to rely on human expertise to lead, validate, and deliver outcomes" — ​Upwork '25​.

What skills does your business need most next to integrate AI effectively and enable business growth during more challenging economic conditions? Will those be integral, medium-term skills or specific short-term expertise or someone to help guide your teams’ current upskilling in the flow of work?

• 99% of UK companies using contingent talent say it’s been a positive experience relying on fixed-term contractors and freelancers, especially for upskilling existing staff.
• 57% of senior tech leaders said contingent talent has helped them upskill internal teams [​FreelancerInformer​].

Outsourcing group, ​Capita​ (UK), hiring 10,000+/year deployed Agentic AI to automate more than 200 tasks especially to significantly speed up hiring, giving recruiters more time to dedicate to final interviews and onboarding.

​Uber​ (US) expanded independent contractor hiring to AI training, e.g. analysts, testers, and data operators, for tasks such as data labeling for self-driving car footage and LLM training—human-AI collaboration in non-employee roles.

​Deutsche Telekom​ (DE) developed an 'Ask Me Anything' AI agent—askT—to handle internal queries around policies and benefits and even manage tasks like leave bookings, streamlining employee interactions.

​Moody's​ (US) AI agents have key roles in research in a multi-agent system given personalities, specific instructions and access to data. They may have different conclusions bringing new perspectives for analyzing financial fitness.

​Worksuite​'s (US) platform emphasizes integrated blended workforce workflows where full-time employees, contractors, and intelligent systems all collaborate, backed by infrastructure tailored for this blended model.

​UK businesses​ are using AI and automation to improve outsourcing strategies, addressing critical skill shortages while cutting costs. Most large firms plan to expand ​back-office outsourcing​ by 2027, led by tech-driven talent acquisition.

“AI and humans both have a role in the evolving workforce… The main problem isn’t the technology, it’s that companies and workers aren’t set up for the current pace of technological shift.”  — ​Marc Benioff,​ CEO at Salesforce.

📘  ​The Coming Wave​, Mustafa Suleyman - AI and our working lives.

🗞️  ​As AI Reshapes the Workforce, Freelancers Are Leading the Way​.

📹 ​Workforce Ecosystems,​ Oxford Internet Institute - managing the mix.

🎶 ​Stronger Together​, Jessica Sanchez - strength in diverse work groups.

For leaders and workers alike, mastering the workforce mix is empowering. Using a range of employment arrangements, teams are future-proofed when they combine full-time and part-time employees, freelancers, contractors, and AI agents. Each member brings unique skills and strengths, creating a blend of workers who together can learn, innovate, and meet today's changing needs.

With insights tailored for your business and workforce strategy, I can help you design and implement the right mix—integrating employees, non-employee workers, and AI effectively—so your teams and business can scale smoothly. ​Click here to book a 30-minute session.

Until next time!

‍

Sophie