A contractor is an individual who is hired by a business or an individual to provide a service. They are self-employed.
Many people use the term contractor, freelancer, and self-employed, or sole trader interchangeably, and they all roughly mean the same thing. Some even call contractors ‘independent contractors’.
Note that in some countries, the word contractor is used instead of builder. In this article though, we’re talking about contractors as someone who provides any kind of service.
What defines them?
A contractor is self-employed. They can do any kind of work, such as being an accountant, doctor, veterinarian, consultant, photographer, architect, mechanic, or gardener.
Some contractors are highly skilled in a specific area and get hired by business on a project-to-project basis.
What separates a contractor from an employee, is that they get to dictate their own work schedule. This means that the business or individual who is paying for the service, can’t control the finer details about how the work is done or when the work is done, they can only make stipulations about the end result.
If you hire a gardener to trim the hedge around your house, you can decide what the end result should look like—whether that’s a topiary or a square hedge—but you can’t make the gardener work 9-5 to finish the job.
What are my responsibilities as a contractor?
As a contractor you have to file and pay taxes, invoice your clients, and you’re responsible for marketing, networking, and selling yourself to gain new clients. You also need to make sure that you’re insured, and that you’re setting aside money for your pension, since you don’t have employee benefits.
On the other hand, you have the freedom to choose what kind of work you do, who your clients are, and what your working day looks like.
See also: Free invoice maker for contractors worldwide
