Your wet lab work is no longer relevant after 2025, the reason is automation. But you can still leverage your biological science knowledge through freelancing.
It’s my 10th year working online, having a PhD degree and specialization in genetics. Started as a freelancer, grew an online academy and now have a complete genetic-media house, I have extensive exposure to the digital world.
The Internet is an ocean of opportunities; you can earn thousands of dollars every month by working remotely or from home. Students often think that it’s the place for software engineers and digital marketers.
That’s not true!
Organisations, people and companies are searching for experts for various tasks. Here, I am listing 10 high-paying freelance work opportunities for genetic students and experts.
Stay tuned.
Key Topics:
Genetic or Biology tutor:
The very basic and simplest freelance work you can do is to work part-time as an online tutor. To be a full-time tutor, you need to work on the entire syllabus, but as a freelance online tutor, you have the flexibility to focus on your topic of interest.
Make yourself skilled or learned, list yourself as an expert tutor and boom, you will get clients, students who want to learn from you. You can easily get 12 to 20$ per hour as per Upwork.
Scientific writer:
Copy and scientific writing are huge markets. In general, the global scientific or medical writing market size is 3.6 billion to ~10 billion USD and growing. Even in the era of AI, scientific writing for projects, research, proposals, research papers and even theses is not going anywhere.
You can charge 12$ to 70$ per hour or depending on the project. I personally worked as a scientific and medical writer for more than 5 years and trust me, it’s a high-paying job.
What is needed is,
- Excellent English writing skills
- Command on scientific writing
- Some decent publication to showcase
- Writing portfolio
Phylogenetic and evolutionary study services:
Yet another simple freelance work that you can do is just provide services for phylogenetics, evolutionary studies or population genetics. These fields need specialization and experts to understand concepts, design assays and experiments, understand & use the tool and need meaningful outcomes.
You can charge 12$ to 40$ per hour as per Upwork and Colabtree.
PCR and RT-PCR analysis and optimization:
PCR and RT-PCR are extensively used in other fields besides genetics. They need experts to understand the machine, assay, optimization and even results. If you have a decent PCR hand, you can charge for your expertise.
Though I didn’t find any job or freelance post on this, trust me, it has immense potential. I started my blog with my PCR expertise and gained 50K to 100K blog readers every month. You can convert them into customers and earn a decent amount.
Sanger sequencing expert:
Having an extensive knowledge and hands-on experience with Sanger sequencing is sellable, too. There is quite a high demand for Sanger sequencing result analysts. The reason is that sequencing is now commonly used in so many diverse fields and they don’t even know how to read the results.
You can help them to understand the results, evaluate them and provide meaningful outcomes and applications. You can charge more for optimization and further experimentation.
Note that nowadays, people are also interested in knowing their cancer reports (sequencing reports), you can help them as well and earn 20 to even 225$ per hour.
These are some popular and common freelance works. Now I am listing advanced-level work for which you can charge hundreds of dollars per hour. What you need is some sharp skills and expert-level deep knowledge.
Here we go!
Genetic counseling and genealogy analyst:
If you are a trained genetic counselor, have a degree, working in the field, you can start freelancing and get clients online. Genetic counseling and genealogy services are the most popular freelance work online.
People want expert advice, need to know which test they need, understand the genealogy reports and a lot more. You need to have extensive expertise and experience in this field, and you can charge 40$ to 365$ per hour.
Genomic data analyst:
GDA (genomic data analyst) is the most trending job option right now in the field of genetics. Extensive experience in genome sequencing, informatics, and using tools and pipelines for analysis is needed to become a GDA or NGS analyst.
If you are technically sound, know the sequencing, the machine, data analysis, variant calling, etc, you can charge 100$ to even 500$ per hour.
Trivia:
You can help select NGS technology as per the client’s requirement and charge for that as well. I did that.
CRISPR expert:
CRISPR and gene therapy are the most emerging fields right now in medical science. If you are a CRISPR expert and have hands-on knowledge in CRISPR or gene editing, you can do freelancing globally.
You can help to design the project, assay and protocols. You can help design sgRNA and plasmid and help in cloning, data analysis and interpretation. Most importantly, you can help prepare the ethical and regulatory compliance for CRISPR applications.
Experts charge 100$ to 300$ per hour or even more.
Advanced Bioinformatics analysis:
Bioinformaticians, in general, are in high demand. It is the top-paying job in recent years. Bioinformaticians have huge opportunities as freelancers!
An experienced bioinformatician with advanced knowledge can do freelancing for genomic data analysis, pipeline development, data processing & quality control, variant annotation & interpretation, transcriptomics & expression studies, data visualization, machine learning and many more.
Even having only one or two skills from this list will help you earn thousands of dollars additional every month. Trust me.
Starting with 25$ per hour, you can charge up to 225$ per hour or task, depending on the need.
Genetic lab setup:
This is my personal favorite – Genetic lab setup. Help people set up a genetic lab, manage finance & funds, and develop a fully functional genetic lab. I’ve been doing it for years.
You just need to use your wet lab work knowledge and help them to design the floor plan, instrumental setup, SOP preparation, standardization, compliance and manpower, that’s it!
Further to this, if you manage their funds, make a plan for ROI and break-even point, and help in marketing, you can charge 2X.
Personally, I have various modules for lab setup, but ideally I charge for a complete setup – from the very scratch to the first sequencing run. You just need only a single project every year, that’s it.
It is a huge money, if you work with passion and help clients to establish a fully functional lab. You can charge 2000$ to 7000$ per project, depending on the requirements.
Wrapping up:
That’s it!
Pick one skill, master it, and work hard to get expertise and you are all set! You can generate a side hustle by working a couple of hours extra every day. And it might be a business in the future.
But you need to establish yourself as a freelancer or service provider and gain authority in the field to get work. Well! That is entirely a different story to tell.
In the next article, we will see how you can become a freelancer, stay ahead of all competition and get clients, business and leads.
Disclaimer: Charge or price information has been taken from Upwork and Colabtree.
