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Viki Dowthwaite is the Group Commercial Director at Trinnovo Group, helping companies across the UK, Ireland, DACH, and beyond build modern workforce strategies through contract, consultancy, embedded hiring, and specialist talent solutions. With more than 15 years in recruitment and workforce solutions, she works closely with organizations that rely on freelancers, contractors, and project-based experts to stay agile in fast-changing markets.
The future of work is not permanent employees versus freelancers. It is a blended workforce where permanent teams build long-term capability, freelancers bring speed and specialist expertise, and project teams deliver outcomes at scale. Companies that still rely only on traditional hiring risk losing time, talent, and market opportunities.
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Key takeaways
- The future of work is a blended workforce – The most successful companies combine permanent employees, freelancers, consultants, and project teams.
- Speed is a competitive advantage – Companies that can access expert talent quickly are better positioned to react to market changes, new technologies, and emerging opportunities.
- AI is increasing demand for freelancers – Freelancers allow organizations to experiment, adapt, and access specialized expertise without making long-term hiring commitments in uncertain areas.
- Businesses should hire for outcomes, not skills – The best freelancer hiring decisions focus on results and business impact rather than simply checking technical skills or tool proficiency.
- The cost of inaction is often higher than freelancer rates – While freelancers may seem expensive when compared directly to employee salaries, organizations must also consider the hidden costs of delayed projects, missed opportunities, slower innovation, and employee burnout.
Why the smartest companies are building blended workforces
For years, many organizations treated freelancers as an emergency solution.
Someone resigned.
A project fell behind.
The team was overloaded.
The answer was simple: bring in a contractor to fill the gap.
But according to Viki, that mindset belongs to the past.
During our conversation, she explained that the companies getting the best results today are no longer using freelancers reactively. Instead, they are deliberately designing workforce strategies that combine permanent employees, freelancers, consultants, and project teams.
Each group serves a different purpose.
- Permanent employees build culture, ownership, and long-term capability.
- Freelancers bring speed, flexibility, and highly specialized expertise.
- Project teams help deliver large transformations and business-critical outcomes.
The goal isn’t to choose one model over another. The goal is to use the right talent for the right challenge.
As Viki put it:
“The independent workforce isn’t just growing. It’s becoming an important part of how businesses stay competitive.”
Speed is becoming the ultimate competitive advantage
One theme kept appearing throughout our conversation: speed.
Not hiring speed.
Business speed.
The ability to react quickly when technology changes, regulations evolve, customer expectations shift, or new opportunities emerge.
Viki shared an interesting comparison.
Some startups and scaleups can onboard a partner in one or two weeks.
Meanwhile, some enterprise organizations spend six months navigating procurement, compliance reviews, and internal approvals before a project even starts.
Think about that for a second.
A scaleup might already have completed the project before an enterprise company has finished its onboarding process.
This matters because technology is moving faster than ever.
Companies can no longer spend months discussing whether they should start something. By the time they decide, the market may already have moved on.
That’s where freelancers create value.
They allow businesses to access expertise immediately, test new ideas quickly, and start delivering before competitors do.
AI is making flexible talent more valuable
Another major topic was Artificial Intelligence.
Like many people, Viki sees AI changing how organizations work.
Unlike the popular headlines, however, she doesn’t believe AI is simply replacing people. Instead, she sees it changing what companies need from people.
Software engineers today are expected to do more than write code.
They need to understand systems.
They need to work effectively with AI tools.
They need to think about business outcomes, not just technical execution.
The challenge is that many organizations still don’t know exactly what skills they will need six months from now.
That uncertainty creates a perfect use case for independent talent.
Instead of hiring permanent employees for capabilities they don’t fully understand yet, companies can bring in specialists who help them experiment, learn, and build quickly.
As Viki explained:
“Gen AI is accelerating the use of flexible talent because it deals with uncertainty. Freelancers can help businesses move through that uncertainty faster.”
In other words, AI is not reducing the need for freelancers. It may actually be increasing it.
👉 Browse 70,000+ freelancers on freelancermap — find your next expert in days, not months
The best talent isn’t sitting in one place
One part of the conversation that stood out was how Viki and his team actually find talent.
Many companies still think hiring freelancers means posting a project and waiting for applications, but reality is much more complicated.
The strongest independent professionals are rarely sitting in one place.
Some are active on LinkedIn. Others contribute on GitHub. Some participate in niche communities. Others appear through referrals, industry events, academic networks, or specialized recruiter relationships.
That’s why Trinnovo invested heavily in communities such as:
- Women in DevOps
- Pride in Tech
- Ex-Military Careers
- Ethnicity Speaks
- Leadership Labs
These aren’t marketing campaigns. They’re long-term relationship ecosystems.
And those relationships often provide access to talent that companies would never discover through traditional sourcing methods.
The lesson for employers is simple: If you want access to exceptional freelancers, build relationships before you need them.
Hiring freelancers is about outcomes, not resumes
One of the strongest points Viki made was around how freelancers should be evaluated.
Too many companies focus on skills. Too many freelancers focus on skills too. But clients don’t buy skills. They buy outcomes.
Viki’s team spends significant time understanding:
- What has the freelancer actually delivered?
- What business problems have they solved?
- What environments have they operated in?
- How quickly can they create value?
That shift in thinking changes everything.
A freelancer is not being hired because they know a tool. They’re being hired because they can help the business achieve something important.
The companies that understand this make better hiring decisions.
The freelancers who understand this win more projects.
The real work starts after the contract is signed
Most people think the placement is the finish line. Viki sees it as the starting point.
His team follows a structured process after every engagement begins:
✅ Day-one check-ins
✅ End-of-week reviews
✅ Bi-weekly follow-ups
✅ Monthly project reviews
✅ Extension planning
✅ Structured offboarding
Why?
Because small problems become big problems surprisingly fast.
A misunderstanding about scope. Missing system access. Poor communication. Misaligned expectations.
Left unchecked, these issues can derail an entire engagement.
Companies that consistently succeed with freelancers actively manage relationships instead of assuming everything will work itself out.
As Viki said:
“We can’t just wait for something to go wrong. You need to manage the engagement throughout.”
That’s true whether you’re hiring one freelancer or an entire project team.
The most expensive option is often doing nothing
Perhaps the most important takeaway from the entire conversation was about cost.
Many organizations immediately compare freelancer day rates against employee salaries.
On paper, freelancers can look expensive. But Viki challenged that assumption. Because the real comparison isn’t salary versus day rate.
The real comparison includes:
- Delayed projects
- Missed opportunities
- Slower innovation
- Burned-out internal teams
- Poor hiring decisions
- Competitive disadvantage
Those costs are harder to see but they are very real. And often they are significantly larger than the freelancer’s invoice.
As Viki put it throughout our discussion, businesses that fail to embrace flexible talent don’t simply lose money. They often lose speed.
And increasingly, speed is what separates market leaders from everyone else.
👉 Sign up and post a project on freelancermap to start receiving proposals from IT experts and specialists
Tips for success
1. Start with the outcome, not the role.
Before searching for talent, define exactly what success looks like.
2. Simplify your hiring process.
A freelancer does not need four interview stages and six weeks of approvals.
3. Stay engaged after onboarding.
Regular check-ins prevent small issues from becoming expensive problems.
