Side Jobs You Can Do While Working Fully Remote

Working fully remote frees up the time you used to spend commuting, which makes side work easier to fit in. What tends to get overlooked is that side jobs come with constraints for fully remote employees that office-based staff do not face. Precisely because your employer cannot see how you work, the line between your main job and your side work is scrutinised more closely, not less.

This article focuses on the conditions that make side work sustainable when your main job is fully remote: choosing the right contract type, classifying side work by how it consumes your time, and separating your resources from your employer's. For side jobs suited to remote workers as such, see Side Jobs That Work Alongside Remote Work, which covers them by occupation.

Fully Remote Employees Face Their Own Constraints

Stopping at "working from home makes side jobs easier" will catch you out later. Three issues are specific to fully remote work.

Employment-based side work means your hours are aggregated

If your side work is also under an employment contract, the hours from both jobs are aggregated for management purposes. When your main job is fully remote and full time, aggregation leaves almost nothing within the statutory working hours limit. The result is that employee-style side work such as hourly shifts is unlikely to be approved. No such aggregation arises under a contract for services, which is why fully remote employees are better off choosing contract-based work from the outset. For the differences, see Contract Work vs Side Jobs: Contract Clauses and Tax Explained.

You cannot use a single piece of your employer's equipment

In an office, company equipment and personal equipment are physically separate. Working fully remote puts both on the same desk, and without deliberate effort they blur together. Using a company-issued laptop, VPN, cloud account or even a company-paid internet line for side work breaches the rules, whether or not side work itself is permitted. Keep a separate device and separate accounts for side work, however small the earnings.

Be able to demonstrate that your hours are separate

Because nobody sees you working, the moment your side work becomes known there is a structural tendency to suspect you are doing it during your contracted hours. Not doing so is not enough if you cannot show it. Keeping side work to before the working day, after it, and at weekends, so that it never overlaps your recorded hours, means you have an answer ready if the question is ever put to you.

Four Criteria for Side Work That Fits

To run alongside a fully remote main job, side work that meets these four conditions lasts longest.

• You choose when you work: side work with fixed time slots collapses the moment a meeting in your main job moves.
• Deadlines have slack: work requiring same-day turnaround or replies within hours clashes with your contracted time.
• Volume is adjustable: being able to scale back during busy periods in your main job is what determines whether you keep going.
• It does not compete with your employer: work for a direct competitor is refused even at permissive employers. The closer the skills, the more care this needs.

Four Types of Side Work by How They Consume Time

Before picking an occupation, sorting side work by how it consumes your time makes the fit much easier to judge. Two things that both count as work you can do from home can affect your main job very differently.

• Stock-based: blogging, selling your own content. With no deadlines and no counterparty, nothing clashes with your main job, but it takes time to generate income. This is the best fit for fully remote work.
• Project-based: writing, design, development. There are deadlines, but you decide when to work and you can adjust how much you take on. This is the mainstream option, with the best balance of income and flexibility.
• Spot-based: expert calls and one-off advisory sessions. Each engagement finishes in about an hour and rates are high, but scheduling tends to follow the client's availability.
• Fixed-hours: online tutoring, shift-based customer support. Because you have to be working at set times, this clashes most heavily with a fully remote main job. Where it comes with an employment contract, the aggregation of working hours applies as well.

Project-based work is the easiest to start; stock-based work is the lightest to carry. For specific occupations and typical earnings, see Side Jobs That Work Alongside Remote Work; for a list organised by category, see 15 Recommended Home-Based Side Jobs: Safe Options for Beginners by Category. Engineers will find The Complete Guide to Side Jobs for Engineers: Getting Started, Finding Work and Typical Earnings useful.

Choosing a Fully Remote Employer That Permits Side Work

Since permission is set by company policy, moving to an employer that has formalised side work is a legitimate option if your current one does not allow it. Companies that have adopted fully remote working usually have output-based evaluation in place, and tend to run comparatively flexible side job arrangements such as notification-only systems. For assessing an employer's policy, see How to Find Companies That Allow Side Jobs; for finding fully remote roles themselves, see How to Find Fully Remote Jobs: What to Look For and What to Watch Out For.

Once the Income Starts

Once side job income passes a certain threshold, a tax return becomes necessary. Under contract work, whether tax is withheld at source varies by engagement, so keeping payment records and expenses separate from the start makes a substantial difference to the effort involved at filing time. The thresholds and the process are set out in The Side Job Tax Return Guide: At What Point Is It Required, and How to File.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Does fully remote work really free up time for side work?

Losing the commute genuinely makes time easier to find than in an office-based role. That said, working from home already blurs the boundary between work and life, and adding side work on top starts eating into rest. Deciding how many hours you will give it, and adjusting your workload to fit, holds up far better over time.

Q. Is there side work that is itself entirely remote?

Writing, design, development and document preparation are typically handled online end to end, including any discussions. Using crowdsourcing or skill-sharing platforms, you can go from engagement to delivery without meeting anyone in person.

Q. Can I use the same skills in my side work as in my main job?

Using the skills is not a problem in itself. The line is crossed when you take client information or internal material out of your main job, or take on work for a competitor. Side work in the same field is the most efficient, but check on every engagement that the client is not a competitor of your employer.

Q. What if my employer prohibits side jobs?

Start by reading the employment rules carefully. Working fully remote makes it harder for your employer to see what you are doing, which also means that being found in breach of the rules reflects worse on you. Working within what is permitted, or considering a move to an employer with a formal scheme, is the safer course. The options are set out in What You Can Still Do When Your Employer Bans Side Jobs: Legitimate Ways to Increase Your Income.

Summary: Contract Type and Time Pattern Decide It

Fully remote work suits side jobs well, but whether it works out is settled by contract type and time pattern before occupation ever comes into it. Choose contract work to avoid the aggregation of hours, and start with project-based or stock-based work where you control when you work. Then keep your device and accounts separate from your employer's, and keep your hours from overlapping. Fix those three points at the outset and you can keep going without affecting your main job.

For choosing specific side work, see Side Jobs That Work Alongside Remote Work, and for finding employers that permit it, see How to Find Companies That Allow Side Jobs.