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ith stiffer competition in the job market and the need for ever-greater incomes to cover more demanding life expenses, more and more people are turning to freelancing to finance their affairs on their own terms.

One is Marischka '€œPrue'€ Prudence, who decided to quit her job as a full time journalist at an established national news station to start a freelancing career back in 2012.

Prue is an example of a white-collar worker dissatisfied with the income she received working at an established company who decided to continue her career on her own terms.

'€œMy main reason to become a freelancer was that I saw that the level of income I could get from freelancing was better than what I could get as a salaried employee,'€ Prue told The Jakarta Post in a recent interview.

 '€œI also wanted to have a full-time career as a travel blogger so I decided to fully quit my job and seriously focus on my freelancing projects,'€ she said.

While money might be the most common factor in people deciding to switch to the freelance industry, most freelancers say that freedom and time flexibility are also among the main draws to quitting their full-time jobs and going freelance.

More time to spend with her family and loved ones was the main reason for Rusmaina '€œMaina'€ Sumapradja to quit her job and become a full-time freelancer around four years ago.

Maina already had a solid career as a public relations executive in an established multi-national company. Her career had lasted more than 14 years and her monthly salary was more than enough to finance her and her family, but the job took most of her time away from her children.

 '€œMy kids were very small and I wanted to spend more time with them. So I decided to quit my full-time job and start my own freelancing career,'€ Maina said.

Both Prue and Maina attributed their success in finding freelancing projects and jobs to their networks from their past jobs in companies. They said that other than having the required technical skills, a good freelancer had to have good people skills.

Prue and Maina are just two of many people involved in the growing freelancing trend in Indonesia. Indonesian society used to deem freelancing jobs less reputable and sophisticated than full-time jobs, but with freelancing success stories gaining fame, the prestige of the industry is gaining momentum as well.

Ryan Gondokusumo, founder of freelancing job portal Sribulancer.com, predicted that the trend of freelancing would reach its peak by 2020.

'€œBy 2020, one in three workers in the world will be a freelancer,'€ Ryan said.

Ryan added that the freelancing trend was also supported by the growing number of available freelance jobs, a situation that would make it even easier for freelancers to find clients.

On the Sribulancer site alone there are at least 1,000 companies actively looking for freelancers and posting hundreds of jobs ranging from website development, transcription and content-writing to search engine optimization, every single day.

According to international recruitment consultant company Robert Walters'€™ Indonesia country manager, Rob Bryson, the freelancing trend is set to become especially large and lucrative in the IT sector in the future, representing a golden opportunity for Indonesian freelancers.

'€œThe IT community, globally and in Indonesia, is the most advanced in terms of freelancing,'€ Bryson said.

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