How do UK businesses outsource their work?

Insight in to the work that businesses offer to third parties

Recent data from YouGov has given an in depth look into how businesses in the UK outsource work to third parties.

Whether UK businesses lack capacity, area expertise or infrastructure, 75% of the UK businesses surveyed have previously outsourced work to third party companies in the last year. In this article, we take a look at what kind of work is outsourced, which businesses are likely to outsource work, why businesses outsource and more.

What kind of work is outsourced?

From the surveyed sample of businesses, YouGov found that the most outsourced work was IT support at 34%, followed by payroll at 28%, but what are some of the other tasks that are outsourced?

Does business size matter?

When it came to different business sizes, YouGov found the percentage of the tasks that different sizes of businesses generally outsource. We have also separated out and listed which kind of work the different sizes of businesses outsource.

Why do businesses outsource?

YouGov found that there are several reasons why UK businesses outsource the 4 most outsourced practices; printing, IT Support, Payroll and Accounting. We looked at the data and found the percentage of the most common reasons that work was outsourced across all 4 of the tasks above.

The top three reasons that come out of this survey show that UK businesses are finding outsourcing to be cheaper, more efficient and it enables tasks to be completed when there may be a skill shortage within the business.

How can you outsource work?

If you have noticed that you aren’t finding the time to complete some work on time, outsourcing could be the solution you are looking for.

Take a look at some of these ways that you can go about outsourcing the work that you need help with.

Identify your weaknesses

There are plenty of areas that business owners have identified as a weakness in their business and where relevant skills may not be available in-house. Finding where you may need improvement is vital to be able to continue to offer a great service to your customers. However, taking time to train staff in these vital skills isn’t always possible when there are tight deadlines to meet. Why not consider undertaking a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threat (SWOT) analysis, which will help you find the areas of your business where you lack the necessary skills, so you know which tasks you may need to outsource.

Find a business to outsource to

Once you know which tasks you need to outsource, the next step is to find the right business to do this work for you.

You will have plenty of options at your disposal, so make sure that you do plenty of research to find the right solution for you. There are lots of established businesses and freelance workers out there who you can outsource your work to based on your needs.

Agree your contract

Once you have chosen who you will work with, work together to create a contract that will outline how the relationship will work.

Take a look at our advice on creating contract terms and conditions for your new business partner. You should also revisit this contract every so often to make sure that the relationship is giving you the results you want.

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