The Upwork Fill Rate Index
Headline: what happens to an Upwork job
of resolved Upwork job postings end in a hire.
n = 617,336 · stable cohort
43.9% of resolved Upwork job postings end in a hire (stable cohort October 2025 through February 2026, n = 617,336). Source: Freelancing Stats, freelancingstats.com Cohorts are measured only after outcomes have settled; young cohorts overstate fill rate. The methodology walks through why our number differs from other published hire rates.
Fill rate by category
| Category | Fill rate | Resolved jobs |
|---|---|---|
| Translation | 51.3% | 11,275 |
| Design & Creative | 48.8% | 159,114 |
| Engineering & Architecture | 48.3% | 24,414 |
| Writing | 46.2% | 21,272 |
| Data Science & Analytics | 45.1% | 19,569 |
| Admin Support | 45.0% | 54,757 |
| Web, Mobile & Software Dev | 44.5% | 146,707 |
| IT & Networking | 40.6% | 13,941 |
| Accounting & Consulting | 40.4% | 25,905 |
| Legal | 38.1% | 7,440 |
| Sales & Marketing | 36.4% | 121,040 |
| Customer Service | 35.2% | 11,902 |
No categories match.
The dashed marker is the overall 43.9% baseline.
Fill rate across stable monthly cohorts
Each point groups resolved postings by the month in which they were published. These are cohort results inside the July edition's stable window, not five separate publication editions. The zero-based bars keep small month-to-month movements in proportion.
-1.1 pp from the previous posting-month cohort, based on 111,452 resolved postings.
Stable cohort fill rate and change by posting month
| Posting month | Resolved | Fill rate | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| October 2025 | 139,304 | 43.5% | Baseline |
| November 2025 | 124,571 | 43.4% | -0.1 pp |
| December 2025 | 114,024 | 43.3% | -0.1 pp |
| January 2026 | 127,985 | 45.2% | +1.9 pp |
| February 2026 | 111,452 | 44.1% | -1.1 pp |
Time-to-fill
Of 15,970 filled jobs (jobs posted April 2026), how long after posting the hire happened:
A job that has been open for more than a week has already missed the window in which three quarters of hires happen; by two weeks, 90% have.
Fill rate by experience level
Expert-tier postings are the least likely to hire.
Fill rate by client spending history
Fill rate by the client's prior spend at posting time:
Fixed-price jobs fill more often than hourly
18.4% of all postings published in the window carry no budget type and are excluded from this split.
Fill rate by client country
Top ten countries by posting volume. Counts include postings not yet resolved; fill rates use resolved postings only:
| Client country | Fill rate | Postings published |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 47.5% | 295,583 |
| United Kingdom | 44.4% | 55,069 |
| Australia | 46.6% | 38,173 |
| Canada | 43.4% | 34,369 |
| India | 26.7% | 25,764 |
| Netherlands | 37.0% | 14,334 |
| Germany | 42.2% | 14,271 |
| United Arab Emirates | 39.7% | 13,601 |
| Pakistan | 41.4% | 12,750 |
| France | 38.3% | 9,957 |
Edition archive
The archive starts with this edition. Future releases append a dated artifact and an edition-to-edition change instead of replacing the published baseline.
| Edition | Data as of | Headline | Change log |
|---|---|---|---|
| July 2026 | 2026-07-03 | 43.9% | First published edition. Established the index baseline and published five stable posting-month cohorts. |
Current artifact: 2026-07 · stable cohort October 2025 through February 2026 · n = 617,336.
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