When Alexa was made redundant from her job in tech sales for the second time in her young career, she realised she couldn’t rely on her industry for financial stability anymore. “It’s volatile, there’s a lot of lay-offs, I wanted to give myself an added layer of protection; a contingency plan,” she says. “It doesn’t matter what company you’re in, it’s so up and down.”
The 26-year-old used her savings to pay £1,800 to train as a pilates instructor. Within a matter of months, she was teaching classes five days a week before commuting into London from Buckinghamshire for her nine-to-five. In the first year, she topped up her salary by five figures: “Any money I made, I invested,” she says. “I’m very money-oriented, as I think you can probably tell… I’d rather spend my time doing pilates classes than scrolling on TikTok.”
Income stacking (juggling multiple jobs at once) is increasingly popular n the UK; particularly among young women aged 16 to 29, one in four of whom have worked in more than one job over the course of the last year, according to research published by the UK Women’s Budget Group last month, using HMRC payroll and self-reported survey data.
Social media manager Sophie, 26, started to juggle three years ago when she found herself out of work after unsuccessful probation periods at “two pretty rubbish jobs” and needed to buy herself time to figure out her next move. Quickly, she started earning hundreds by selling clothes on Vinted, doing research surveys on apps like AttaPoll, Swagbucks and Qmee, secret shopping for brands to test their customer service, and taking part in market research, which would pay up to £150 for a half-an-hour chat.
Now, Sophie’s back in full-time work; but the easy extra income is too tempting to pass up. She still does surveys while sitting on the train or watching TV. “It’s hard to stop,” she says. “People say ‘oh it’s just £20’ but that can put petrol in your car. It could be a food shop… I’m building up my emergency pot, so that I have three month’s salary ready to go if I need it.”
This desire to stack up multiple-revenue streams is much more than just the second coming of the “girl boss”. In Britain, women are 50 per cent more likely to be in low-paid work than men, while those who work in high-paying sectors, such as financial services, suffer the most prominent gender pay gaps. According to The Self Employment Association, even women running their own businesses are likely to be paid far less.
Additionally, as the Middle East energy crisis continues and the cost of everything from food to fuel keeps rising, it’s unsurprising almost everyone is scrambling to earn extra cash to cushion the fall. In one particularly alarming survey, experts predicted that should a recession take place, a quarter of a million people will lose their jobs by the middle of 2027, meaning putting all your eggs in one corporate basket is risky business right now.
It’s not just Gen Z who are income stacking. Although working multiple jobs has long been a needs-must for households trying to make ends meet, there are now a record 1.35 million adults in the UK working at least two jobs: the highest level since records began, according to the ONS. Of those surveyed, one in six struggle to pay their household bills each month.
Alexa and Sophie schedule their second means of making money around their full time job but some remote workers take it further; doing two full time jobs at once unbeknownst to their bosses. This practice, known as polygamous working or “being overemployed”, sprouted during the pandemic, with some white-collar employees working from home earning up to £450,000 a year from double or triple salaries on the sly, Business Insider reports.
One British influencer, who says they made £200,000 from two nine-to-five roles, tells her followers on TikTok that it’s all above board: “It worked for me, it was great. I was able to do really nice things and take care of myself, go to nice places, save up for property. If it’s something that hasn’t crossed your mind because you think it’s illegal, then definitely get rid of that notion. You can absolutely have two jobs,” she says.
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Polygamous working isn’t technically illegal but it can breach an employer’s code of conduct. In December last year, a woman was convicted of fraud for having two full-time jobs, one at Barnet Council and the other at Croydon Council. Separately, a 66-year-old man in Gloucestershire made nearly a quarter of a million pounds moonlighting in four different jobs at multiple councils and was jailed for three years. The National Fraud Initiative (NFI) has since started cross-referencing payroll to crack down on public sector polygamous working.
Those who have assets and prefer to stay on the straight and narrow stack their income passively, by renting out parking spaces, second homes, or spare bedrooms. Twenty nine-year-old Anna’s* parents have long had lodgers; mostly international students from the nearby boarding school who don’t want to fly all the way home for their holidays, while their school accommodation is closed. “We’re a big family so we love hosting people,” she says. “We charge anywhere between £50 to £100 a head per night and with that money we feed them, do their laundry, and take them on trips to London.”
“It’s helping my parents with the cost of living, especially with the interest rate on their mortgage,” she adds. “We’re lucky to have spare rooms in our house since my siblings have moved out but I’d absolutely recommend it to other people – it’s been really fun showing them the city and it hasn’t been disruptive at all. The agency we work with has made sure everything runs smoothly and we’ve had some really lovely lodgers.”
But anyone who doesn’t have assets – in 2022-23, only 39 per cent of people aged 25 to 34 owned their homes – is left with one thing to sell: their time. Sophie has learned the laborious value of monetising her spare moments. “I realised a lot of my friends would rather give things away than go through the hassle of selling them,” she says. “So, I put a post out to everyone in my building saying that if anyone didn’t have time to put their possessions on Vinted, I’d do it for them and take 50 per cent of the profit. I wound up with about 15 bags of clothes – some were even brand new with tags, which blew my mind. I could never imagine just throwing them away. It just takes a bit of time.”
There is, of course, the possibility of hustle culture’s worst enemy: burnout. Not allowing yourself time to simply do nothing is, fundamentally, not good for your body or your brain. “I’ve decided to drop my classes down by 50 per cent, so I still have my weekends,” says Alexa, who altered her non-stop schedule after her corporate job ramped up and five pilates classes a week became too much to handle. “It’s a lot more strategic and controlled now,” she says. “I can see my family, see my friends and actually spend time on my own, which means I don’t feel exhausted from teaching my classes – I feel energised from them.”
*Name has been changed
