Writer, then editor, then what

A panel followed for five years

The study began in 2021 with a panel of twenty-eight web copywriters, salaried or freelance. Twenty-three agreed to be followed through to 2026. None left the sector, which contradicts the accounts of an occupation disappearing. Nineteen of them nonetheless do different work from what they did five years ago.

Three successive shifts

The first shift concerns the initial production of the text, largely delegated from 2023 onwards in the organisations we observed. The second concerns editing, which becomes the main activity and is almost always billed at a lower rate than writing. The third, more recent, concerns editorial responsibility: checking, sourcing, putting your name to it.

That third shift is the only one in our panel that comes with any uplift in pay. Seven people negotiated a rise on the strength of the legal responsibility they now carry. The other sixteen do the same work with no trace of it in their contract.

I am paid to edit and I answer for accuracy. Nobody has written that down anywhere, but I am the one they will call.

Rates do not follow responsibility

The rates reported in the panel show a median fall of 22% in the price per page between 2021 and 2026, in current euros. That fall comes with an increase in the volume handled, so median annual income declines more slowly than the unit rate. Reported working time, for its part, does not fall at all.

We publish these reports in full in the series devoted to measurement. They are self-reported and should be read as such, with the biases that entails.