Developing professionally while working independently: career development of professionals working in the gig economy

An increasing number of professionals, such as travel nurses, independent scientists, graphic designers, and consultants, work outside of organisations on temporary ‘gigs.’ Yet, most scholarship on careers in the gig economy focuses on lower-skilled workers. The rich literature on professionals, for its part, primarily focuses on the experiences of professionals within organisations, generating conclusions that may not necessarily apply to professionals who are employed as gig workers. We discuss the four defining characteristics of professional work—expertise, normative service orientation, status, and autonomy (Gorman & Sandefur, 2011)—and consider how these shape professionals’ career development in organisational settings. We then discuss how these four features might influence the career development of professionals who are working independently in the gig economy and propose several fruitful avenues for future research in this area.