How To Become A Freelance Producer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a freelance producer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Johnathan Paul

A freelance producer has almost the same job description as a regular producer, except that they are not tied down to one company and generally have more freedom to pick who they want to work with. A freelance producer can be for film, music, photography, and many other types of media and arts.

The duties of a freelance producer vary depending on their type of work, but in general, they spend most of their time meeting with clients to discuss the job, sourcing talent and vendors, developing production plans, collaborating with other creatives involved in the project, and overseeing the actual production of the project.

The best degree to become a freelance producer depends on the industry, such as a bachelor's degree in music for a music producer. However, a college degree is not always necessary for this job, with a lot of freelance producers having only high school diplomas or even less than that. In this type of job, what's more important is experience, skill, and, of course, creativity.

What general advice would you give to a freelance producer?

Johnathan Paul

Adjunct Professor, University of North Texas

My number one piece of advice for soon-to-be or recent graduates is never to stop learning. I always strive to tell my students to be as diverse as possible. Don't just know one thing; in today's market, you need to know how to do several things. Diversify your tool palette. This will help you in the long run and may lead you to a career path you didn't realize existed.

ScoreFreelance ProducerUS Average

Salary

4.9

Avg. Salary $62,218

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

9.2

Growth rate 8%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

5.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.17%

Asian 6.32%

Black or African American 7.79%

Hispanic or Latino 14.31%

Unknown 5.56%

White 65.85%

Gender

female 41.33%

male 58.67%

Age - 39

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 39

Stress level

9.2

Stress level is very high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.8

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

2.8

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a freelance producer

Explore freelance producer education requirements

Most common freelance producer degrees

Bachelor's

80.2 %

Master's

9.3 %

Associate

7.7 %

Start to develop specific freelance producer skills

Skills	Percentages
Music Videos	20.35%
News Stories	6.20%
Video Content	4.69%
Video Production	4.49%
Live Events	4.04%

Complete relevant freelance producer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New freelance producers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a freelance producer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real freelance producer resumes.

Research freelance producer duties and responsibilities

Drive engagement by managing the brand's YouTube channel, as well as all other social media outlets.
Manage production shoots for image campaigns and monthly communications meetings for CNN newsroom and internal in-house creative services department.
Manage creative release process working closely with site merchandising, content engineering, release engineering, QA, buyers and marketing.
Manage the QA process including test/debug cycles and platform compliance/compatibility testing.

Prepare your freelance producer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your freelance producer resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a freelance producer resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable freelance producer resume templates

Build a professional freelance producer resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your freelance producer resume.