The Occupation-Level Self-Employment Gap
Christopholivierconsulting.com built a self-employment gap table specifically for marketing and creative occupations, since neither the BLS Employment Projections program nor the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program publishes a direct self-employment percentage on its own. Advertising and Promotions Managers show the largest gap at 20.5%, followed by Advertising Sales Agents at 11.6%, Public Relations Specialists at 10.3%, and Public Relations Managers at 10.0%. Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists sit lower, at 4.5%, and Marketing Managers lowest of the group, at 2.9%. For comparison, the same table puts Web Developers at 18.4%, a cross-occupation anchor showing marketing’s highest-gap roles land closer to a known high-freelance occupation than to marketing’s own lowest-gap roles.
The methodology behind that gap is stated plainly on the page itself: it is calculated by comparing the Employment Projections program’s 2024-2034 National Employment Matrix, which includes self-employed workers, against the OEWS program’s May 2025 wage-and-salary-only counts for the identical occupation codes. Because the two programs use different reference periods and different counting methods, the resulting gap approximates rather than exactly measures self-employment, and the page states directly that occupations with large freelance segments are likely understated by this approach, meaning the true self-employment share in a role like Advertising and Promotions Managers is probably higher than 20.5%.
The Independent Workforce This Sits Inside
MBO Partners’ 2025 State of Independence in America, now in its 15th consecutive annual edition and fielded in April 2025 with weighting to US demographics, counted 72.9 million independent workers in the country. Within that population, 5.6 million earned $100,000 or more annually, up 19% from 4.7 million in 2024 and nearly double the 3 million recorded in 2020, itself already well above the 1.9 million measured when the survey began in 2011.
This is a macro figure covering the independent workforce broadly, not a marketing-specific data point, and it does not measure how many of those 72.9 million work in marketing or creative roles. Used alongside the occupation-level gap table above, it establishes the scale of the broader population a marketing consultant or freelancer belongs to, and the rate at which high-earning independent work has been growing across that population as a whole.
The Numbers
A BLS-derived methodology puts self-employment gaps at 20.5% for Advertising and Promotions Managers, 11.6% for Advertising Sales Agents, 10.3% for Public Relations Specialists, 10.0% for Public Relations Managers, 4.5% for Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists, and 2.9% for Marketing Managers, against 18.4% for Web Developers.
Christopholivierconsulting.com, “Marketing Salary & Employment Statistics 2026 (BLS Data)”
The table’s own disclosed methodology states the figure approximates rather than exactly measures self-employment, since it compares two different BLS programs with different reference periods, and that occupations with large freelance segments are likely understated by this approach.
Christopholivierconsulting.com, “Marketing Salary & Employment Statistics 2026 (BLS Data)”
MBO Partners counted 72.9 million independent workers in the US in 2025, in its 15th annual State of Independence survey.
5.6 million independent workers earned $100,000 or more annually in 2025, up 19% from 4.7 million in 2024 and nearly double 2020’s 3 million.
Sources
The external data in this article draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.
- Christopholivierconsulting.com, “Marketing Salary & Employment Statistics 2026 (BLS Data)”
- MBO Partners, “2025 State of Independence in America”