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.
My bar job was a 40 minute walk from home. And I often ended up getting a taxi back, because I finished late at night and didn’t want to walk in the dark. Not ideal when you’re on minimum wage.
I wish I had known about the potential of online jobs for students back then!
There are so many ways to earn money online as a student that pay much better than your typical student bar or retail job.
Online jobs are usually flexible. You can work any time of the day or night, around your college schedule. And you don’t waste precious time commuting.
Plus you can work from your dorm room, library, or even from your phone while you’re out and about!
The epic list of online jobs for students
I put together this giant list of online jobs for college 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. Most of these jobs are things you could potentially do 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!
Heads up: this post contains affiliate links. That means that if you buy something or sign up for a service through one of the links on this page, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. This is how I earn money to keep running this site. Thank you!
Online tutoring
Potential earnings: £10-£24 per hour
So you might spend your days attending lectures and studying. But have you considered flipping it and becoming a tutor yourself?
There’s huge demand for private tutors for high school students at all levels, including GCSE and A level tutoring.
What’s more, thanks to the internet you can now work as a private tutor online.
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:
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.
Higher-paying work usually requires a TEFL certificate. You can take these online pretty cheaply and they are a great asset to your CV!
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 office 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, click here.)
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 college 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!
Caitlin has since created a well-respected general proofreading course that teaches you everything you need to know to get started as a freelance proofreader.
Matched betting
Potential earnings: £200-£2,000 per month
Matched betting is definitely up there as one of the best online jobs for students in the UK.
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 Profit Accumulator which has video guides to talk you through each bet, plus live support and amazing forums!
This is definitely one of the highest paying opportunities for students to earn money in the UK!
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!
Obviously, since all the work is done online, you can work from anywhere you like, for clients based anywhere in the world.
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.
Surveys
Potential earnings: £20-£100 per month
Many companies out there will pay you to share your opinions and experience by taking online surveys for money.
Now, surveys are not the best-paying option out there. 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)
- Pinecone Research (£3 per survey; not always recruiting but if it is, sign up now!)
- YouGov (regular, interesting surveys for the media)
- 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: £20-£200 per month
There are a whole range of websites out there dedicated to making money online! Most of these sites have a range of ways to make money, such as completing offers, surveys, 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 month 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.
20 Cogs
20 Cogs is very similar to OhMyDosh but you have to do all 20 offers before you collect a payout. This can take a while but it means you get a nice chunky payment of about £200 at the end 🙂
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 college 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.
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 college students.
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. Alternatively, here are two easy sites to get started with as a beginner:
These two sites don’t pay so much, but they will accept anyone without experience or qualifications.
If you’re interested in becoming a professional transcriptionist, this free email 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!
Freelance writer
Potential earnings: £5-£150 per article
Writing is a popular online job suitable for college students. If you are studying an essay subject subject as English Literature or history, you will probably find that writing comes quickly to you. This is a great way to 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, this post has some great tips on getting started as a freelance writer.
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:
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’re 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
What are the best part time jobs for students in UK?
I am in the UK myself, so this post is written with UK students in mind. Any of the ideas in this post will work as part time jobs for students in the UK!
One thing that I particularly want to highlight is matched betting. In my experience, this is the single best way to make decent money online fast. And it is only available in the UK, so we should make the most of it!
Matched betting is a particularly great way for students to make money because you usually have some free time in the middle of the day, so you can take advantage of time-sensitive offers such as horse racing.
But no worries if your schedule doesn’t allow this. I still made around £600 a month matched betting around a full time office job, mostly just on Saturdays.
Another good online job to look at is teaching English online. Some companies such as Education First are specifically recruiting UK tutors – and the company is based in the UK, so they pay in £££ and offer standard UK benefits such as pension contributions.
Here are some other posts on making money especially for all my Brits out there:
What are some international online jobs for students?
So what if you’re NOT in the UK but you stumbled on this post anyway? No worries – most of these ideas will work wherever you are located.
Here are just 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!
I have a list of sites that accept under 18s in this post:
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:
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
Ways to earn money online as a student: conclusion
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 college 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:
This post was first published on 10 September 2019 and was updated on 30 April 2020.
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