10 Popular Work at Home Jobs

Many people dream of working at home. It can seem like a breeze—that is, until you find yourself in your home office for a sixteen-hour day.
The truth is, working from home is still hard work, but there are absolutely benefits to it, especially if you can find a way to create a great work/life balance for yourself.
If you’re a worker who wants to give working from home a try, consider one of the ten popular work at home jobs below (listed in no particular order).

Writer

Being a writer is perhaps one of the most romanticized professions in all of history—who hasn’t dreamt of writing a masterpiece, selling it for millions, and then kicking back to enjoy the good life?
Well, it’s rarely (pretty much never) so simple. Of course, being a writer could mean a variety of things, from technical writing to blogging to being a children’s book author (or doing all three at once!).
Writers often work for a variety of clients and switch between a variety of tasks. This can make your work at home situation difficult, especially when you’re staring down a number of deadlines, growing piles of laundry, and a complete lack of sunshine and exercise.
But, when you’ve got the right clients, are charging the right rates, and have worked on your skills until you’ve become a valuable asset to whoever hires you, being a writer can be a great work at home job. Just don’t forget to go for a jog every once in a while.

Graphic Designer

Similar to a work from home job in writing, graphic design has great variety. Perhaps in the morning you’re working on an advertisement for a Fortune 100 company, then in the afternoon a flier for your friend’s punk band, and then at night on the comic strip you hope will launch you to stardom.
There’s a vast array of opportunities in a field like this—I know a designer who not only creates advertisements, but also is a tattoo artist and cartoonist, among many other things—that it’s largely up to you as an artist to find a way to make a living, especially as a freelance graphic designer.

Editor

Editors are needed for everything from editing blog posts to revising someone’s self-published romance novel. There’s definitely competition for assignments, but if you can find a few steady clients as an editor, you can generate a nice income.
Opportunities include editing or consulting for students’ college admissions essays, working remotely to manage or edit a company’s blog, and much more. If you have skills in multiple languages, you may also become a freelance translator as well as an editor.

Web Design

If you’re conducting any sort of business these days, you need a website. That means web designers can find opportunities large and small—from the biggest companies in the world to the local pizza shop on the corner, or the someone who is launching her career as a magician for children’s birthday parties. Many people would rather outsource their web design and focus on running their business—that’s where you step in, and, besides perhaps an in-person meeting or two, you can almost exclusively work at home as a freelance web designer.

Social Media Manager

A quick search of Fiverr shows that Social Media Manager gigs are plentiful, and many of them are perfect for people who work at home. There’s often overlap here between fields—you might be expected to create content (graphic, written, video) as well as to market that content on social media platforms.

Sales

Sales jobs are common for people who work from home, but you have to be careful about what jobs you accept—for every legitimate opportunity there’s a pyramid scheme or an outright crummy job listed. That means you should do your research. Find reviews of the company you plan to work for, or even reach out to other people who have worked for them (you can find people on LinkedIn or other platforms).

Marketing

Marketing often encompasses many of the jobs listed above—writing, editing, graphic design, social media management, and much more. Companies will outsource some of their marketing efforts to experts who can bring all of these disparate elements together into a coherent, effective marketing campaign. As a freelancer marketer, you can work for multiple clients simultaneously, all from your home office (just be sure to let them know if you’ve got any conflicts of interest… it would probably be hard to launch campaigns for competing businesses simultaneously).

App Development

Everyone’s got an idea for a great piece of software or a great app. Not everyone has the skills to actually design that app. If you do have the skills or are willing to develop them, you might be able to find a plethora of work at home opportunities.

Teaching English as a Second Language

There are people all over the world who want to learn a second language. Many of them want to learn English from a native speaker. If you have teaching skills, and, ideally, ESL credentials, you can pick up clients through many freelance job boards, and use Skype or other tools to connect with those clients on a regular basis. With enough students, you may even be able to ramp up to full-time income.

Accounting/Financial/Business Consulting

Have a background in accounting? A CPA? Certified Financial Planner? MBA? Working from home is becoming more and more common for people in these fields—it’s often easier for both the client and the consultant to conduct business over the phone or email. Even if you have a full-time job in a traditional setting, you can pick up some extra work on the side to boost your income, or to start your own business and pursue the dream of working full-time from home at some point in the near future.