According to research by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), contractors earning an average annual salary of £30,000 will face a difficult year in 2010.

It seems slightly paradoxical that while freelancers frequently earn more than their permanently-employed colleagues, they routinely have issues trying to obtain mortgages. This problem arises when you try to demonstrate to the mortgage provider that you can actually afford it.

The first thing is to think about why you want to go freelance. While permanent jobs are increasingly unreliable, the one certainty of freelancing is that you will be out of work at some point and you won’t have a formal support structure around you to help out. Although, of course, that is exactly the way many freelancers prefer it. So having decided to go freelance, here are the steps you take.