BEST SIDE HUSTLE IDEAS UK | 50 Ways to Make Extra 1000 a Month

Here are the 50 best side hustle ideas UK – Updated May 2024

As inflation and the cost of living rise, now is a good time to explore the best side hustle ideas to make extra money.

For today's post, we share 50 ideas for how to make an extra 1000 a month.

Side Hustle Ideas UK

In my experience, the key to making money is to take an existing tried and tested idea, and then add your creativity and energy to it.

It's important to mention that these ideas require patience and a strong why to start to make consistent income from them 😀.

You may also need to combine 1 or 2 ideas to make over 1000 extra a month.

Finally, it's not about finding the next shiny new idea. It's about focusing and actually implementing ideas that work.

To further help you implement these ideas and also take control of your finances, we can email you once a week with small tasks to guide you. Start here

How To Pick Your Side Hustle Ideas

Before choosing a side hustle idea, here are 5 important questions to consider:

• How much money do you want to make? 💸
• And how much effort do you want to put in?
• How much time do you have available to explore it?
• Do you want it to become a business one day?
• Will you enjoy doing it? 😀

These 50 best side hustle ideas will be split into 5 parts. Let’s jump straight in!

PART 1: MAKE MONEY ONLINE IDEAS

Here's our selection of the best side hustle ideas to make money online.

1. Start a YouTube channel

Starting a YouTube channel has changed our lives. This is something that anyone can do and top of our list of best side hustle ideas deliberately.

Content is King in a world where a lot of the world owns smartphones.

This idea makes money because media is a form of leverage.

Plus YouTube actually promotes your content for you compared to a blog where you have to do this yourself.

You can also generate all kinds of income.

Watch our guide for how to start a YT channel.

Top Tip:

Just start and create 1 or 2 videos per week focused on “Help Content” solidly for at least 12 months.

Your strategy could actually be to focus on easily digestible short-form content of 5 minutes or less.

Ingredients for success are:

• Quality
• Value
• Authenticity
• Consistency
• Energy

2. Start a Niche and Impactful Blog

This too makes the top of our best side hustle ideas list because anyone can do it once you get past the initial technical aspects of setting up a blog.

However, it will not make money overnight.

So you need to give yourself between 6 to 12 months to see some income coming through.

The one very important advantage that a blog has over a YouTube channel is that you own the blog but you don't technically own your YouTube channel.

If you're a complete newbie to blogging, don't worry.

We've got a very detailed step-by-step guide for how you can get started with blogging,

Follow our detailed Step by Step tutorial

Top Tip:

Budget £200 – £300 to get started.

We’d suggest investing this in hosting and paying someone to help you with any initial technical bits. This is so important.

Most people give up here at the technical stage instead of outsourcing. Please don't make the same mistake.

Look on Upwork.com to find someone easily.

3. Affiliate Marketing

Here you make money by promoting products you love to earn a commission as a middle man.

The truth is that a lot of people don't make money from affiliate marketing simply because they don't know what they're doing.

Our first ever commission was $12.83:

We’ve shared everything we’ve learned about Affiliate Marketing, including examples of our affiliate marketing income in this course recently.

The strategies in the above course help us to consistently make over $9,000 per month in affiliate income.

Top Tip:

Focus on a maximum of 5 affiliates that you love and promote them honestly and transparently from the perspective of how they’ve improved your life.

4. Become a Virtual Assistant

This offers the benefit of flexibility working from home and making money at the same time.

Top Tip:

Focus on becoming a specialist virtual assistant in areas such as Technology, Social Media, Pinterest Manager, etc.

Virtual assistants earn a decent income, which can range from £10 – £30 per hour, for example.

To get started, we'd suggest contacting creators who you follow e.g. bloggers, YouTubers, Podcasters, etc.

We'd also suggest that you focus on learning the skills of a “Tech Virtual Assistant” as you can earn a lot more money.

5. Freelance Writing

We’ve written a detailed guide about this one, which you can read.

We covered:

• How much you should charge,
• Where to find freelance writing work,
• How to get started

Top Tip:

The top tip here would be to choose a niche (e.g. personal finance, food, etc), start creating a portfolio, and pitch for more work.

6. Amazon FBA

Here you own your online store on Amazon, and you source and sell products for your brand but they are Fulfilled By Amazon (FBA).

i.e. the products are packaged and delivered by Amazon.

If you join the FBA programme, you become eligible for Amazon Prime delivery of your products, which gives you a unique advantage.

This requires some capital and time commitment.

Amazon FBA is a very popular course inside Financial Joy Academy if you want to learn from those who are having success at it.

Check out Financial Joy Academy to learn more.

Top Tip:

Learn directly from those who have had success with Amazon FBA.

It will lead to fewer costly mistakes. In addition, don’t expect to make money from this overnight.

7. Create and Publish a Course

Here you can either create a course using free platforms like Thinkific or Teachable and sell these courses yourself.

Or you can host them on platforms like Udemy where they’ll have more visibility for others to buy them.

Other platforms like Skillshare are great too for creating courses.

However, to make real money from a platform like that, it helps massively to have an audience that already knows, likes and trusts you.

Top Tip:

The biggest tip here is to be led by demand. I.e. only create a course that people want.

You can even pre-sell the courses i.e. get paid before you create the course.

Then, the next best thing that you can do is to create the course outline.

8. Get Sponsored

You can get sponsorships if you already have an audience.

Or if you can convince a brand that you’re a beginner but you can speak to a specific engaged community.

This is how some people start their first business 😀.

Many companies and brands are now focusing more on micro-influencers (i.e. people with small audiences) as they tend to be more authentic with their audience.

Top Tip:

Don’t wait to get sponsorship income when you’ve become big.

Start small and engage companies. Create a 1-page Media Kit explaining what you do and who you can reach, etc.

9. Create a Meaningful Low Ticket Membership

There is a greater need for supportive communities and congregations.

This is why groups (whether on Facebook or WhatsApp) work very well.

A membership offering takes this simple fact to a whole new level i.e. having it centered around a specific topic, gender, interest, or goal.

E.g. You could have a ‘females in business’ membership, or a ‘dog lovers membership’.

In our case with our membership, we attract people with a similar mindset with the common goal of achieving financial independence together through strategies like investing or starting a successful online business.

Top Tip:

Use existing tech e.g. WhatsApp groups, and Facebook Groups, and choose 3 things that your membership will offer.

E.g. Community, meetups or support, etc. Price it at around £10 or $10 per month to start.

Every 12 weeks, we help 12 purpose-led people to build their membership businesses to make recurring multiple streams of income.

One of the memberships we helped to launch recently is ‘Business Analyst School'.

If you want to be considered for our Architect Programme, simply book a call here with us.

Please only book this call if you're purpose-led and serious about building a membership business. This is a premium coaching programme.

Speaking of community, here is ours from Financial Joy Academy:

10. Teach What You Know via Coaching

Everyone has something that they are good at.

The goal of coaching is to help someone achieve a specific result. E.g. They start a business or learn to invest, etc.

Top Tip:

Brainstorm 3 things that you’re good at, which can help someone achieve a specific result, and consider offering 121 coaching around that to start.

Then, over time, you can progress to offering coaching in a small group capacity.

We offer coaching ourselves too. If you want to know about this, head over and check out how to work with us.

PART 2: MAKE MONEY SELLING THINGS

Here are the 10 best side hustle ideas to make money from selling things:

11. Sell Your Crafts

Platforms like Etsy.com have made selling handmade crafts super easy.

What is required here is creativity, time commitment, and the ability to research what is selling.

Some of the most popular items to sell on Etsy to make money include:

• Printables such as planners,
• Digital art,
• Handmade and Personalised Jewellery,
• Accessories,
• Stickers for walls,
• Party decorations, etc.

Top Tip:

Spend 3 hours in one day just browsing Etsy in a specific area.

Opening an Etsy shop is easy but the things that lead to success are the quality of your photos and how easily your products are found.

Pinterest and Keyword Research are very powerful for being found.

12. Sell Your Ideas via an eBook

The beauty of eBooks is that you need to put the energy in once to create them, but once done, they can keep selling.

Top Tip:

Focus here on overdelivering on value and keeping the cost of your eBook low.

For example, you could create an eBook that has £500 value but you sell it for between £5 and £15.

Provided your eBook delivers on value, it will keep selling if you market it well.

This is where platforms like having a blog, or a YouTube channel as mentioned earlier really come in handy.

Read: £11,169 in 3 Days Selling Digital Products. Learn how

13. Sell User-Generated Videos

User-Generated Content is big business.

Thanks to our smartphones and good quality cameras.

With this, you don’t even need perfect videos. You just need to capture what you see on the go and you never know, your videos could go viral!

 Platforms like Newsflare are great for connecting creators with buyers.

Top Tip:

 Get filming things on the go. The more viral-worthy, the better.

14. Sell Clothing Online

Here we are going beyond just selling your clothes, but buying clothes from others online and reselling on platforms like Depop or eBay.

You can source these from car boot sales, second-hand shops or charity shops.

Top Tip

Start with your wardrobe. Anything you have not worn in a while needs to be sold.

If this is a difficult task, empty out your wardrobe, and only return items that you wear.

If you have items of clothes left after 4 months, sell it.

15. Sell Your Time Doing Surveys

Why not get paid or receive vouchers for giving up minutes of your time?

You typically get paid between £1 and £5 per survey for giving up 15 to 20 minutes of your time. You can also get paid via Amazon vouchers.

Check out platforms like:

Valued Opinions or Opinion Outpost and Swagbucks

Top Tip:

Decide how much you’d like to earn from surveys and use that as a guide for how much time you should commit.

16. Sell Printables and Digital Downloads

This speaks to what we shared on idea #11 earlier but focuses specifically on printables and digital downloads.

This even includes things like spreadsheets, planners, checklists, templates, calendars, etc, which are super popular.

Top Tip:

Use Canva.com to create your printables. Platforms to focus on include Etsy and GumRoad.

17. Sell Homemade Products

Here we’re talking about things that you can sell as part of a brand that you create.

Everything from homemade candles to t-shirts and printed merch.

18. Sell Businesses In a Box

This is more of a niche idea based on the fact that most people are too afraid to start something.

What they’d prefer instead is a business in a box.

You can do the job of putting together:

• Niche
• Business model
• Website

For a specific business idea and then sell that business in a box to someone else for a profit.

Top Tip:

If you can get the business to start making money, that immediately increases the price at which you can sell it.

This is one reason why learning how affiliate marketing works.

If you can create a business that generates regular affiliate revenues, many people will be interested in buying it.

19. Sell Personalised Cakes

We’re a nation of bakers as evidenced by shows such as the Great British Bake Off.

This has also created opportunities for cake lovers to make money if they can focus on specific areas.

e.g. Children’s birthday cakes or if they target people from a specific income bracket.

20. Source, Package and Sell Niche Food Online

Whether you love food or not this is an opportunity for someone out there.

You do need to make sure that you’re abiding by any Food Standards Agency rules though.

My dad does this idea for African food ingredients and makes very good margins on each one.

You can also consider this as a form of subscription box depending on the type of thing that you offer.

EBook: Get our Step-by-Step Guide to implement 5 Passive Income ideas that make us 6-figures annually.

PART 3: MAKE MONEY OFFERING SERVICES

Here are the best side hustle ideas to make money offering services:

21. Become a Tutor

Ideal if you’re good at a specific subject and like teaching.

It’s a good way to make a regular income.

We’ve created a detailed guide on this for you to learn more.

22. Start a Cleaning Business

One thing that adds a lot of value to our lives at the moment is having someone who comes and helps us clean the house once a week.

It’s a great repeat business if you’re someone who has a genuine interest in adding value this way.

It can start small as a side hustle, but something like this needs to become a full-on business to be sustainable.

23. Create a Tuition Centre

Again, similar to idea number 21, except this time, you’re hiring a place and teaching in small groups.

Or you hire a tutor to help you deliver the tutoring and you focus on the marketing and admin.

Please learn more by reading our guide on how to start a tuition business

24. Events Organising

Are you good at organising dinner parties or events in general? 🥂

Throw in a bit of creativity (e.g. imaginative themes) and you could end up with a side hustle that brings people together with fun and grows in popularity at the same time.

25. Get Into Franchising

This is where an established business grants you the right to use their trade name (and proven business model) in return for a one-time franchise fee, plus a percentage of sales revenue.

Lots of businesses offer franchise opportunities today but you need to make sure it is the right thing for you as it’s a long-term commitment.

Spend some time looking at the pros and cons of any opportunity.

26. Become a Translator

Although this is quite a niche, if you are bilingual, then becoming a translator could become quite a good side hustle 📝.

A good platform to check out to start getting paying gigs as a translator is ProZ.

Having a very good LinkedIn profile also helps.

27. Learn and Offer Video Editing Services

Video editing is in high demand and very lucrative.

You can learn to do this in 3 – 6 months by learning on YouTube.

Prices can vary depending on the types of videos you edit and for what niches.

The goal here should be to get started and price your services per video and then deliver high-quality work.

28. Become a Content Repurposer

Anyone who can help content creators to take one piece of content (e.g. a YouTube video) and efficiently turn it into 10 – 15 other pieces of content, will make a lot of money.

Most content creators have a lot of content, but when they’re not able to do as quickly is to repurpose their stuff for example into a blog post, Instagram posts, Reels or even quotes.

We’re sharing this idea as someone approached us to offer this service, but they were way too expensive.

So this idea is one that someone else can run with and figure out a way of making it cost-effective for creators.

29. Social Media Manager

There are so many small businesses out there that need social media help.

They know they need to exist on social media.

But they are spreading themselves too thin and doing so many things.

A lot of them can't do it all and they need help.

If you're someone who has social media skills, e.g. Instagram or using Tik Tok, then you can be well placed.

Get in there and advertise yourself, promote yourself as someone who's a good social media manager.

Provided you're consistent, you do what you say, you are going to do and actually deliver, then you find that you get a lot of referrals from your very first client.

You find yourself getting repeat business as a social media manager.

We know this idea works because we recently hired a Social Media Manager on a freelance basis for The Humble Penny.

She is someone who simply follows and loves our work, and reached out to us and we liked her and gave her a go.

Read: How To Start a Business UK: 10 Step Guide

30. Online Business Manager

Here you’re acting as the right-hand man or woman for an online business owner.

Many small business owners need this person in their business and they’ll pay well for it.

Expect to earn anything from £25 to £50 per hour as an Online Business Manager depending on your experience.

Again, we know this side hustle idea very well because we have an Online Business Manager who works with us and it's one of the most important roles in our business.

PART 4: MAKE MONEY QUICKLY

Here are the best side hustle ideas to help you make money quick-ish.

You won't get rich quickly doing these but you'll see income fairly quickly.

31. Become An Uber Driver

It’s a 6-step process in the UK and one of those steps is of course a requirement for a driving license.

The money you make with Uber depends on when, where, and how often you drive, take a look at the website if this appeals to you.

32. Get a Second Job

This could be anything from working behind a bar, in a cinema, working in a supermarket, or your favourite retail store.

So long as it actually makes you money then it's all good, right? 

33. Do Data Entry Jobs

Everyone can do data entry. If you can type on your phone, then you can do data entry.

If you want to find these jobs, head over to platforms like Upwork.com where you can easily search for freelance gigs on data entry

34. Offer Pet Sitting Services

If you're a pet lover or you just love being around animals offer to look after other people's pets for a fee.

It's like babysitting, but for pets. 

Simply search “pet sitting near me” on Google to see what opportunities exist around you.

35. Rent Out Your Spare Room

Alright, this next one is the quickest money you could probably make, which is to rent out a spare room if you've got one.

The beauty with this is that there's a taxable benefit as you're allowed to earn up to £7500 per year of a rent-a-room allowance.

Read more here on the government website.

36. Profit From Flipping

Although we’ve covered re-selling earlier, if you’re into taking a bit of risk, you can flip higher-value items like expensive trainers, watches, or even houses.

37. Offer DIY Services

This is one of the most guaranteed ways to make some extra money as there is always demand for DIY services.

If you're good at painting and you've got attention to detail, then why not put yourself forward to seek small DIY jobs.

Websites like TrustaTrader.com or RatedPeople.com are great for advertising your DIY services.

Alternatively, start with your family and friends, and if you do a good job, then word of mouth is likely how you'll continually get good business.

38. Become a Delivery Driver

Many companies such as Amazon, Argos, and the big supermarkets now rely on drivers to deliver goods to their customers.

This is another way to make a decent wage, whilst moving around from place to place listening to some great podcasts.

39. Get Cash Back On Purchases

So you might have planned expenses already, so why not get cash back on those purchases?

One of our favourite cash-back sites to check out is Quidco.

We use them ourselves and you might want to consider getting cashback on your purchases with them.

40. Become a Dog Walker

If you're somebody who loves dogs, and you love keeping fit, why not go dog walking?

You make money and you get fit at the same time. It's a win-win,

Search “dog walker wanted near me” in Google as a start.

PART 5: MAKE MONEY EXPERIMENTING

Here are the best side hustle ideas to make money by experimenting with new ideas:

41. Profit From Crypto

Our suggestion is not to rush into this. Do your homework and get comfortable with it.

We suggest learning with Coinbase as they offer the opportunity to learn and earn crypto as you learn.

However, it's very important that we mention that crypto is unregulated in the UK and you could lose all your money by investing in it.

So please don't accept this as financial advice. Watch our detailed video on how to research Crypto.

If you do decide to explore crypto, we'd suggest a maximum of 5% of your money exposed to crypto.

42. AirBnB / Rent-To-Rent

This is essentially rent-to-rent, where you rent a property and then you sub-rent it to someone else provided you've got the permission to do so.

We actually have my sister and her husband doing this right now and they have done pretty well doing it.

There is a skill to doing this properly though and making money from it.

If you're a member of our academy, you can watch our rent-to-rent masterclass.

Alternatively, simply head over and learn more from Airbnb to get started that way.

43. Upcycling

Here, you're taking something that people might have discarded and actually rebuff, change or paint it and turn it into something else.

If you go on platforms like Etsy or eBay, you can find upcycled coffee tables that are going on sale for between a premium of anything from £200 to £500.

The reason is there isn't any other like it.

Top Tip:

If you're going to do this use good quality wood and where possible, try and avoid MDF. People source furniture from places such as eBay, and Craigslist.

44. Self-Publish Niche Books

Here we are talking about science fiction, romance, or even fantasy books.

This is cheaper than the traditional routes as there are no publisher fees or printing costs.

The main body of work is in creating the niche book content itself, which once done is done.

However, it can take as little as 5 minutes to publish a book on amazon and it becomes available worldwide within 24-48 hours.

You can earn up to 70% royalty on sales to customers in the UK US and beyond.

Top Tip:

Include a link in your book to a freebie in exchange for email signup to your newsletter.

Read: Guide to Self-Publishing a Book

45. Buy and Sell Domains

The most lucrative domains are .com domains. 

For example,

Tesla.com – $11,000,000 (2014)

Hotels.com – $11,000,000 (2001)

A good way to make money from this apart from buying the .com domains is to find other extensions.

For example:

www.Vacation.Rentals sold for $500,300 in April 2018.

www.Home.Loans sold for $500K in December 2017.

Top Tip:

Find these domain names for as cheap as 99p on Godaddy for example, and list them for sale on a website like sedo.com

46. Ghostwriting

If you enjoy writing, then writing for others can be a fun way to make money online and offline.

Bloggers especially are always looking for freelance writers.

A good way to start is to start your blog and develop your writing style.

Read: How To Start A Blog That Makes Money

47. Proofreading

This is a bit like ghostwriting. Again, it's quite a niche area but it's ianother way you can generate a good income on a consistent basis.

So if this is something that's of interest to you feel free to either Google proofreading jobs near me.

That's one thing you can check out, as we've referenced a few times platforms like Upwork, where you can get freelance gigs.

Alternatively, places where you can look for freelance proofreading opportunities, either in the UK or beyond.

48. Offer Tech Support Services 

This could be offered in the form of virtual assistant services as mentioned earlier.

If you have technical skills, you can offer this service to small businesses and help their tech support to run smoothly and efficiently.

Top Tip:

Focus on learning how to use important tech tools such as Convertkit as this is critical to the functioning of an online business.

I'd also suggest spending time learning how WordPress works as lots of pro-bloggers and creators have their blogs built on WordPress.

Once you are comfortable with both of these software, pitch your services to digital creators as they're always in need of tech support services.

You could even offer your services as a subscription in order to better guarantee your monthly income.

49. Learn and Offer Photography

This takes time and money investment but can pay off if you’re passionate about it and patient enough to see it pay off.

Implementation Top Tip:

Focus on a niche such as Property, for example.

We’ve got a photographer who works with us and every year, takes pictures for us to use on our website.

She’s focused on 2 niches – Weddings and Property.

The property side makes more money but the weddings are more fun.

50. Start a Podcast

It is less competitive than blogging and Youtube.

As of December 2021, there are over 2 million podcasts, 37 million Youtube channels, and over 600 million blogs.

Running a Podcast’s a great way to build a personal connection with you and your brand.

This is because listeners are more engaged with a podcast and listen on average much longer than they would a Youtube video. 

Implementation Top Tip:

Start a Podcast as an addition to an existing Blog.

Monetise with Affiliates, advertising, and sponsorships.

What to Read Next on Best Side Hustle Ideas UK

• Get Coaching to Start a Membership Business
• How to Start An Online Business In 7-days
• Ebook: Implementation Guide for £1,000+ Per Month

What to Watch Next on Best Side Hustle Ideas UK

What is your biggest challenge when it comes to implementing any of these best side hustle ideas? Drop me a comment.

Do please share this post if you found it useful, and remember, in all things be thankful and Seek Joy.