29+ Legit Online Jobs For Students (in the UK)

Best online jobs for university students

When I was a student, I had all kinds of odd jobs.

I worked in the student union bar for a couple of years, and I worked as an English teacher while I was studying abroad. I even did some mystery shopping!

I did enjoy most of these jobs, but I didn’t enjoy the time I wasted trekking back and forth across town for them.

Luckily, I soon discovered the potential of online jobs for students!

There are so many ways to earn money online as a student in the UK that pay much better than your typical student bar or retail job.

These online jobs are usually flexible. You can work any time of the day or night, around your uni schedule.

And you can work from your dorm room, library, or even from your phone while you’re out and about!

My epic list of legit online jobs for students

I put together this giant list of online jobs for university students so that you can find jobs that work around your schedule and make money from home while you study 🙂

This list also includes potential earnings. These are just a rough estimate, as obviously it completely depends how many hours you are available each month, among other factors. Keep in mind that your earnings could vary.

I estimated these earnings based on part time work. You could potentially do most of these jobs full time too, if you wanted to.

But since you’re a student, I’ll assume you need to study and have a life too!

Online tutoring

Potential earnings: £10-£24 per hour

As a student, you spend your days attending lectures and studying. But have you considered flipping it and becoming a tutor yourself?

There’s huge demand for uni students to work as private tutors for primary and high school students at all levels, including GCSE and A level tutoring.

What’s more, you can work as a private tutor online – saving you time and money on travelling to students’ homes.

Depending on the platform, you can give lessons or help students work through problems over online chat, email or video call. 

In my opinion, this is one of the best online jobs for students to earn money. Teaching helps you learn your own subject better because it reinforces your knowledge and helps you process information.

Also, tutoring looks GREAT on your CV as it demonstrates a whole range of transferable skills such as leadership, communication skills and problem solving!

Here are two online tutoring companies that both accept undergrads as tutors in the UK:

• My Tutor
• Superprof

Teach English as a second language

Potential earnings: £8-£20 per hour

Do you speak English? Then you’re in luck!

There are a whole raft of jobs out there as an online English tutor for students learning English as a second language. And you already have the number one qualification (speaking the lingo!)

The work varies depending on the company you sign up with. Some companies pay you just to chat in English! Others require you to teach more structured lessons over a video call.

The pay depends on the company and whether you have any teaching qualifications. But you can earn up to £20 per hour as an online English tutor.

Higher-paying work usually requires a TEFL certificate. You can take these online pretty cheaply and they are a great asset to your CV!

Freelance writer

Potential earnings: £5-£150 per article

Writing is a popular online job for college students.

If you are studying an essay subject subject as English Literature or history, you will probably find that writing comes easily to you.

Freelance writing is one of the best work from home jobs for students because you can earn some extra money while honing your skills.

You can pitch for freelance jobs directly on sites like Upwork or Problogger (see this post for tips on getting started as a freelancer), or go with ‘content mill’ sites such as Textbroker.

The content mills don’t pay very well but they always have work available, so if you can churn out articles quickly this can be an easy way to make money online as a student.

If you want to set up on your own as a freelancer, here’s a list of sites to find freelance writer jobs.

Blogging

Potential earnings: £50-£10,000+ per month(!)

I’m a professional blogger now, and I LOVE my job.

I managed to build my blog up to a full time income after two years of blogging. During that time, I probably worked on my blog for around 10-20 hours a week, on top of my full time office job. 

Believe me when I say, it was tough putting in those hours on my blog as well as working full time. I worked hard as a student too, but didn’t appreciate how much free time I had then compared to when you enter the working world!

If I could be a student again, I would 100% set up a blog while still at university.

This is because of the relative free time I had then, and because it would have given me a head start on earning some serious cash before graduation.

If I had been earning a decent online income back then, it would have opened up so many doors for travelling and enjoying life, rather than rushing into a standard grad job just to get by.

Blogs are not a fast way to make some easy cash. I usually tell people to plan to stick with blogging for at least a year before you start to see decent money coming in.

(If you need money fast, see this post.)

BUT – an established blog has probably the highest income potential of any job on this list!

I would say it’s probably one of the best online jobs for uni students simply because of the potential.

I personally know many UK bloggers (myself included) who earn a full time income of anywhere from £2,000 to £10,000 per month from their blogs. And I know of many bloggers in the US who earn six figures monthly!

If you start building a blog while still a student, you have time to build it up to a full time living by the time you graduate, and you’ll never have to get a ‘real job’!

Website flipper

Potential earnings: £50-£500+ per month

If you’re interested in blogging, but can’t wait the one to two years to start making good money, consider blog flipping. 

This involves either buying or starting a small site and selling it on for profit.

There are dedicated sites for buying and selling blogs such as Flippa. 

Some people are willing to pay good money even for a small site that isn’t making much profit yet, simply because they like to work with something ‘ready made’ rather than setting everything up themselves. 

If you can learn how to quickly set up small websites, you can sell them on to make a fast profit.

Proofreading

Potential earnings: £100-£400 per month

If you’re studying English or another essay-based subject, and you have a great eye for detail, proofreading might be the best online student job for you. 

There is an ever-growing demand for proofreaders now with the boom in online content. You can find freelance work proofreading books, blog posts, other students’ essays and more.

Caitlin Pyle is one online proofreader who has made as much as $40,000 per year just by proofreading.

She actually started proofreading as a side hustle when she was a college student, studying abroad in Germany and proofreading her fellow students’ English texts!

Here’s Caitlin’s free online workshop that will teach you more about the job:

Matched betting

Potential earnings: £200-£1,000+ per month

Matched betting is definitely up there as one of the best online jobs for uni students in the UK (over 18s only).

Don’t be put off by the name – matched betting is not gambling! It’s a way of using special calculations to ‘match’ bets across different bookies, playing the bookies against each other and extracting profit every time from the special free bet offers.

It sounds kind of complicated, and to be honest it does sound a bit weird until you’ve tried it.

But there are matched betting training sites out there that show you exactly what to do, and they have special software and calculators to help you place the right bet.

Personally, I am a member of the site Outplayed.com which has video guides to talk you through each bet, plus live support and amazing forums!

You can make up to £40 this weekend just with their free trial, and I guarantee you’ll want to continue. I’ve personally made hundreds of pounds per month thanks to this method.

Here’s a video by Sam Stoffel, founder of Outplayed, with more info:

Virtual Assistant

Potential earnings: £12-£50 per hour

If you are internet savvy, highly organised and want to make money online, then Virtual Assistant (VA) could be the perfect online job for you.

Virtual Assistants do various tasks for anyone who wants or needs to outsource some work! Your clients might be bloggers, online businesses, or even traditional brick-and-mortar businesses who need help with some virtual tasks.

Here are just some of the services you can offer as a VA:

• Research
• Calendar management 
• Processing orders
• Drafting blog posts
• Editing and proofreading
• Customer service
• Responding to emails
• Transcription
• Social media management
• General admin work

You might choose to specialise in one or two of these services, or be flexible and do whatever your clients need!

Social Media manager

Potential earnings: £12-£50 per hour

Every single business needs social media these days, from online businesses to traditional services. But many business owners don’t have the time or skills to run their social media by themselves.

That’s where you can step in. If you can set up social media profiles, create and schedule content, and respond to DMs, there are unlimited companies who could use your skills.

Pinterest manager

Potential earnings: £12-£50 per hour

A Pinterest manager is a type of Virtual Assistant who specialises in Pinterest! 

If you already use Pinterest day in, day out, this could be the ideal way for you to earn extra cash.

Pinterest is an important and growing platform for businesses large and small, but many companies simply don’t know (or care to learn!) how it works.

In addition, Pinterest is the largest source of traffic for many professional bloggers, who are willing to outsource Pinterest management so that they can focus on writing.

Pinterest managers or VAs can offer the following services:

• Pin image design
• Manual or scheduled pinning
• Monitoring results and feeding back to client
• Setting up promoted pin (ad) campaigns
• Research trending topics, content ideas and competitors using Pinterest

There is even a course you can take to learn how to launch your Pinterest VA business.

Appen

Potential earnings: £300-£800 per month

Appen is a huge data company that is always hiring for various online jobs.

The work available includes:

• Search engine evaluation (helping search engines improve their results)
• Social media evaluation
• Translation
• Transcription
• Micro tasks
• and various other roles.

You have to pass a test to get in, but then you will have you pick of flexible online tasks that you can do at a time to suit you.

Lionbridge is a similar company with search evaluator and other online jobs suitable for university students.

Surveys

Potential earnings: £20-£100 per month

Many companies out there pay you to share your opinions and experience by taking online surveys for money.

Now, surveys are not the best-paying side hustle in the world. But, they are one of the easiest online jobs for college students with no experience. Literally anyone can sign up with online survey sites and start making money straight away.

What’s more, you can usually do them from your phone too.

While surveys are no replacement for a real job, they can be a productive way to spend your time while on the bus or waiting for a lecture to start.

Here are the top sites I recommend:

• Prolific (best paying; never screens you out)
• YouGov (regular, interesting surveys for the media)
• Paid Viewpoint (again, never screens you out = no wasted time)
• Qmee (cash out instantly, no minimum payment threshold)

And if you want even more, I have a master list of survey sites here. The more you sign up with, the more you can earn!

Money making sites

Potential earnings: £50-£1,000 per month

Did you know there are websites that literally pay you to do small online tasks?

Sometimes called Get Paid To (GPT) sites, most of them have a range of ways to make money, such as completing offers, surveys, playing games, referring friends and more. 

Like survey sites, these sites probably won’t earn you as much as getting a part time job. But they can be an easy way to make some extra cash for beer money each month. 

Here are some I recommend. 

OhMyDosh!

OhMyDosh! is my top recommended site for making money online in the UK. You get paid for signing up for different offers and free trials. I especially love the ‘lightening payouts’ section which means you can get money in your account in three days!

You can see exactly how I earned £20 in 30 minutes here.

Cashback

Cashback is very similar to OhMyDosh but you have to do 15 offers before you collect a payout. This can take a while but it means you get a nice chunky payment of about £150 at the end 🙂

Freecash

Freecash is a fab money making site with loads of ways to earn. Personally I love this one for the paid mobile gaming offers! Yep, you can get paid to game on your phone.

Also, all new sign-ups get to open the mystery ‘free case’ which contains a bonus of up to $250.

Swagbucks

Swagbucks has loads of different ways to make money online including surveys, offers, paid search, watch videos, cashback and more. I don’t recommend the surveys on Swagbucks because they have a bad reputation for screening you out.

But I like how you can get paid to watch videos. You can just leave this running in another tab to earn points with no effort. Although, try to click on ads and interact with the screen occasionally, or you can get banned.

Inbox Pounds

You can earn points on Inbox Pounds by taking surveys, searching the web, playing games, watching videos and cashback.

InstaGC

With InstaGC you earn points which you can redeem for gift cards. The main ways to earn are surveys and watching videos. You can also earn by downloading apps, browsing websites and signing up for free trials.

Again, I like to let the videos play in another tab while I’m working to clock up some easy points!

Website tester

Potential earnings: £8 per 20 minute test

This work involves checking out a company’s website or app, and feeding back on your experience. You don’t need any tech knowledge to do this – the clients simply want to know how their website comes across to the average user. 

You’ll have to download a special screen recorder software (this is free and easy, all instructions provided once you’re accepted) and then you simply complete some simple tasks on the website and talk through your thoughts and any issues.

Website testing is such easy and fun work, and I’m always surprised it isn’t more popular! 

There are several sites that hire website testers. I mostly use User Testing but take a look at this post for more.

This is an easy online job for university students without investment. Tests sometimes go quickly, but if you’re a student with a flexible timetable and you can get online in the middle of the day, you have a better chance of grabbing more work.

Research studies (respondent, focus groups)

Potential earnings: £50-£100 per study

Research studies are like surveys but more involved, and much more lucrative!

There are three key places I’d recommend looking for paid research studies as a student:

Respondent

This AMAZING website is a goldmine for easy opportunities to earn money online! It is a source for online focus groups and paid interviews (online or over the phone or video chat).

These are all very well paid studies – typically $50-$100+ for one interview, which could just take an hour of your time!

The reason it’s so well paid is that many of the studies require people working in a particular field or with particular qualifications, so it can be difficult to qualify.

But check in regularly with the site and you’ll find there are many studies suitable for students too.

Focus groups

Focus groups are when you attend a group discussion about a product or idea, for market research purposes. There are some online focus groups, but you will find way more opportunities if you live in a major city and can attend in-person groups. These groups usually pay £50-£100 for half a day.

Take a look at this post to learn more about making money with focus groups and where to sign up.

University studies

Since you’re a student, where better to find work than on campus!

Many university researchers need participants for studies, and they’ll usually advertise around campus. Look out for signs on department notice boards and in the library, or see if your local college has a web page or social media accounts that list studies.

University studies are usually not as well paid as commercial studies but you can still earn a little extra cash, and some will give you freebies like snacks and coffee as a thank you for taking part.

Web developer

Potential earnings: £200-£1000 per month

There are always going to be opportunities for people who can create websites and apps. You can learn to code for free online with sites such as Free Code Camp.

If you’re not interested in learning computer languages, you can even make and sell basic websites just in WordPress or with a drag and drop builder such as Thrive.

Translation

Potential earnings: £100-£600 per month

If you speak a second language, or if you’re studying languages, translation is a great way to earn extra money as a student while honing your skills.

Freelance work is probably the easier way to get started while you’re still a student, as many larger agencies require professional qualifications.

Advertise for freelance jobs on sites such as Fiverr and People Per Hour.

Gengo is an interesting platform for translators that lets you log on and accept work on your own schedule.

Also, when I was at uni (I studied languages), the tutors would sometimes email us with one-off opportunities for interesting translation work. Contact the staff in your language department and let them know you’d be interested in any work.

Fiverr

Potential earnings: £5-£100 per month

Fiverr is a marketplace for all kinds of freelance services. Jobs are called ‘gigs’ on Fiverr. You can advertise almost any kind of gig you can think of! 

In addition to traditional freelance skills such as writing, editing, translation and design, there are all sorts of crazy gigs for sale on Fiverr. I enjoy browsing in the ‘lifestyle’ category on the site to see what kind of things people are making money with.

Here are some interesting gigs I found:

• Relationship advice
• Video game coach
• Singing happy birthday songs
• Writing a message on a funny sign
• Creating memes
• Being an online boyfriend
• Sending postcards internationally from your hometown

You might wonder who is paying for some of these things, but since typical gigs are just $5 (hence the name), people buy a lot of the weirder gigs as a joke or funny gift for a friend! 

You course, you can charge more than $5 if you like. You can earn a lot more if you have an in-demand skill such as coding.

Facebook ads manager

Potential earnings: £200-£1000+ per month

Many companies know they need to get on Facebook to attract more customers, but they don’t know how and don’t have time to learn.

If you can master Facebook ad campaigns, you can offer to run these for local businesses. You could charge a fixed monthly fee, a commission per referral, or a share in profits.

There are lots of resources online to learn Facebook ads, including inexpensive courses on Udemy.

Transcriptionist 

Potential earnings: £200-£500

Transcriptionists turn the spoken word into the written word. This a flexible online job suitable for people with good attention to detail and a fast typing speed.

You can work as a freelance transcriptionist, or with an agency. See this post for a list of places to find work:

• Transcription Jobs UK: Best Transcription Companies Hiring In The UK Now!

If you’re interested in becoming a professional transcriptionist, this free course will teach you the basics.

Sell digital products on Etsy

Potential earnings: £50-£1000 per month

You probably know Etsy as the online marketplace for hand crafted goods. But did you know you can also sell digital products on Etsy?

This is potentially way more profitable than selling physical goods because you can sell the same digital file over and over again, with no more work from you!

Here are some examples of digital downloads that you can sell on Etsy:

• stock photos 
• social media templates
• wedding/party invites
• printable journal pages, calendars etc
• printable wall art
• phone/computer wallpapers
• Snapchat filters

This is an example of an easy side business that you can launch while still at uni, that could one day grown into a full time income!

Micro Influencer

Potential earnings: £30-£1,000+ per post

Top social media influencers can famously earn thousands for posting a sponsored post to their millions of followers. But you don’t actually need such a huge following to make money as an influencer. 

Many brands are now looking for ‘micro influencers’ who have a smaller niche following. The important thing is that your followers are engaged and active – so don’t ever be tempted to buy followers just to boost your numbers. Most of these are bots and won’t do your stats any good.

In addition to sponsored posts, you can make money from your social following with affiliate links, referral codes, ads or selling merch (depending on the platform).

This is a fun side hustle idea to earn money online as a student. Learn more in this post.

Print on demand

Potential earnings: £50-£1000/month

Print on demand sites let you design your own merch (t-shirts, hoodies, phone covers, tote bags etc) to sell online. The great thing is that the site will handle the printing and shipping, so all you have to do is design and market your products.

And because the goods are literally printed on demand (i.e., when somebody places an order) this keeps costs low and there’s no waste.

This is a good idea for college students to make money online (particularly if you’re an art or design student) because it’s so flexible.

Just work on your designs in your spare time, upload them to a few different sites and you can start earning money even while you’re in lectures or on a night out.

Here are some popular print on demand sites to try:

• Merch by Amazon
• Printful
• Zazzle
• Redbubble
• Teespring 
• Teelaunch 

Read more about my print on demand experience here.

Slice the Pie

Potential earnings: £10-£50/month

Love discovering new music? Slice the Pie pays you to write reviews of new music tracks.

It’s not very well paid but it’s an easy way to start making money online with no experience, and it could be fun if you love listening to new tracks anyway.

Online researcher

Potential earnings: £5-£15 per task

If you can find out information online quickly, you can earn money online as a researcher. Wonder is one company hiring online researchers now.

Clickworker (data entry etc)

Potential earnings: £5-£15 per hour

Clickworker is a website with various online jobs suitable for students. The work includes data entry, research, writing, editing and micro tasks.

Give your opinion on TV 

Potential earnings: £5-£15 per hour

Do you watch a lot of TV? The Viewers is a UK based TV market research company. You can earn money by taking part in surveys and focus groups all about the programs you’ve watched!

Sell photos and videos from your phone

Potential earnings: £5-£50 per month

Newsflare is a website where you can upload videos that you took on your smartphone. If a publication wants to feature them, you earn money!

The best videos are either cute or funny things with the potential to go viral (think puppies and babies), or breaking events in your local area (coverage of protests, etc).

This post has more info on how it works.

Affiliate marketer 

Potential earnings: £50-£2,000 per month

Affiliate marketing is when you share special tracking links to products that you recommend, and you earn commission from the sales made through your link.

Affiliate marketing goes hand in hand with blogging (and it’s how I earn most of my income), but you can actually earn money with affiliate marketing without a blog.

You can do this by building a following on social media (Facebook groups work well to build a community and share your links) or an email list of people interested in your niche.

I also have a tutorial on how to make money on Pinterest with affiliate marketing (without a blog).

Fulfilment By Amazon business

Potential earnings: £50-£1,000 per month

‘Fulfilment By Amazon’ (FBA) is a way to sell products on Amazon. You send your products into the Amazon warehouse, and let them deal with the storage, shipping, customer service, etc.

It’s an easy way to sell online without having to store loads of inventory yourself. And without the hassle of running to the post office every time you make a sale!

Many people find products to sell by ‘retail arbitrage’ – that is, finding products on sale cheaply in the shops that you can sell online for a higher price. 

Alternatively, you can import products (or even have them made!) specially. Many FBAs find cheap Chinese suppliers at Alibaba or Ali Express.

If you’re interested in learning more about FBA, check out this free email course ‘Everything You Need to Know to Start Selling on Amazon’. The course was created by Jessica of The Selling Family, who makes a full time living on Amazon.

FAQs about online jobs for students (UK)

What are the best part time jobs for students in UK?

Any of the ideas in this post will work as part time jobs for students in the UK, such as freelance writing, online tutoring, translation, transcription and so on. Two jobs that are particularly suited to UK students are online English tutoring and matched betting.

English tutoring makes the cut because some companies specifically recruit UK tutors.

And as for matched betting, in my experience, this is the single best way to make decent money online fast. And it is pretty much only available in the UK and Ireland, so we should make the most of it!

Here are some other posts on making money in the UK, especially for all my Brits out there:

• 13 Tried-and-Tested Ways to Make Money Online in the UK
• How to Earn Extra Money in the UK: 75 Ways to Make Extra Cash
• Best Side Hustle Ideas UK

What are some international online jobs for students?

Here are some examples of online jobs for students that you can do from anywhere in the world:

• Virtual Assistant
• Blogger
• Sell gigs on Fiverr
• Transcriptionist
• Develop and/or flip websites
• Print on demand (design T-shirts etc to sell online)
• Website testing
• Affiliate marketing
• Dropshipping

I also have a separate post on ways to make money online internationally, which includes lots of money-making sites that you can join from any country.

How can I make money online under 18?

If you’re still a high school student, it can be harder to find opportunities to make money online under 18, but it’s not impossible! You can make money online with sites such as Freecash, Swagbucks and Slice the Pie.

I have a list of sites that accept under 18s in this post:

• 10+ Legit Online Jobs For Teens

What are some ways to earn money from home for students?

All of the jobs in this post are good ways to earn money from home for students 🙂 

For more ways to make money from home, check out these posts:

• 54 Sure-Fire Ways to Make Money From Home
• 24 Ways To Make Money Without Leaving Your House
• 12 Best Flexible Work From Home Jobs for Mums

What are some free online jobs for students without investment?

First off, I want to say that if a company asks for cash upfront – run. This is a sure sign of a scam. There are so many legit ways to make money online with no investment, and you should never have to pay a company just to get a job.

That said, there are some occasions when it makes sense to invest a small amount in the equipment, training or knowledge to start an online job. This is different from paying a company just to work for them.

Some examples are buying a headset so you can teach English online, or paying for web hosting for your blog (this starts at around £3 per month).

But there are also LOTS of free online jobs you can start with no investment at all! Here are some of them:

• Online tutoring
• Virtual Assistant 
• Survey sites
• ‘Get-paid-to’ sites such as OhMyDosh! and Swagbucks
• Proofreader
• Sell gigs on Fiverr
• Focus groups and research studies
• Freelance writing

What do you think are the best ways to earn money online as a student?

In this list, I’ve curated 29+ online jobs for students, things that I think are suitable for students specifically because they work around a university schedule.

What do you think? Have you tried any of these jobs? How did they work for you?

Are you going to try any of these ideas? 🙂

You might also be interested in the following posts for lots more ideas on how to earn extra money:

• How To Make Money Without A Job (21 Must-Know Methods!)
• 7 Online Jobs You Can Do With No Experience
• Get Paid To Read Books! 9 Savvy Ways For Bookworms To Make Money

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