Like the previous two years, I thought I’d use my last scheduled post of 2025 on this site to look back at the year and my professional highlights within it. Professionally there has been a bit of rebuilding of the business, with a more healthier split of revenue in the business, opening up a couple of revenue streams, and just generally been better place. I’ve also been juggling remote work being a bit more remote – spending over 10% of my time this year in Bucharest, Romania. More of that later.
Personally it’s been a good year, with some strong relationships, improvements in the things I focus my free time, and generally pretty healthy! I’ve been so grateful for that, but you don’t care about the personal stuff, let’s focus on the freelance life!
Website & Newsletter
I hit 7 years freelancing in August. I don’t really want to tempt fate but I had my first discussion about what happens when I reach the 10th anniversary of freelancing. I’ve got a bit of a way to go but I have a daft idea on what to promote for that! Due to the nature of the work I’ve done this year (again, more of that later), I’ve had less time to dedicate to this site. However I was able to release a plugin this year – Revive to Sky was the third plugin I have released associated with this site. It’s not really had much of a push for promotion, but hopefully will be able to add more features, hopefully by the end of January.
Being more hectic and spreading myself a bit thinner has been a challenge, however my goal of “one blog post & newsletter every month” has been kept. Sometimes even more than one post in a month. The biggest blog post from the year? The oddly specific “How to add an administrator in WordPress“. I’ve got a few ideas for similar blog posts which should see the light of day in 2026. It was the third biggest traffic blog post of the year, behind “Can WordPress run Doom?” and “What is the fastest WordPress page builder?“. I really should update that post.
WordPress dropping to 2 releases a year (instead of the usual 3) for 2025 meant I struggled to think of WordPress blog post ideas, but I managed to get out a bit, so event recaps have filled that space. More on that later.
My WordPress newsletter continues to go well. I’ve had a few unsubscriptions this year, but people seem to really enjoy it, which is a joy in itself. It’s still stubbornly on the mid 20’s subscribers and it’s less than the number of newsletters I have written, so be a dear and subscribe! Thanks!
Freelancing
I’ve worked with 29 different clients in 2025, which is up on last year. It wasn’t really planned to increase that much – in January 2025 my three largest clients announced that they weren’t renewing their contracts in awfully bad timing. That has meant that from February onwards I’ve had to rebuild my client base a bit. I’m not there, but I’m getting there – January 2026 sees three new clients come on board, and I’ve had nice discussions with potentially another warm lead, so I’m in a good place. What has been incredibly nice this year has been I’ve had two clients return to me after going to other agencies. It’s reassuring to get them back on board for 2026.
I have worked closely and employed the services of a couple of agencies. Typeface Digital redesigned my advert for the Colwyn Bay Football Club programme to try and get more leads. I’ve worked with Slingshot Search’s new business idea of 3D Printing for some material for MWUG, and also towards the end of the year worked with Tim Nash on a security audit for some plugin work I was doing. Although not directly employing them, I’ve worked with projects with Salt and Paper Digital, Whitworth SEO and Polka Dot Data. There’s probably more, but I’ve forgotten. Work with these people. They’re all good.
One of the biggest challenges as alluded to above has been splitting my time between two places – the UK and Romania. My partner lives in Bucharest so freelancing has given me the opportunity to work from Bucharest remotely. It’s largely been a success. It means obviously starting earlier and finishing earlier in a standard day, but overall things have worked well and nobody has complained. She’s moving back, so it won’t be a thing in 2026.
Events & Other Projects
This year I attended two conferences. Loop Conf (read my review of Loop Conf 2025 here) and Hive MCR (read my review of Hive MCR 2025). I also attended a couple of WPLDN events and of course ran MWUG. MWUG has been largely stable, with the co-working numbers being steady, but we managed to start evening events in Stockport. Numbers have been a bit low (we haven’t broken 10 people attending), but there’s a plan to move it into the heart of Manchester in 2026.
I’ve also got back into public speaking, talking about my freelance journey at MWUG and WPLDN. That has been nice once again to connect with the WordPress community and offer insights to folks. The talks have all been received well, so hopefully will do some more in 2026. I’m looking to revamp the Talks page on my site at some point in the new year, as it’s been so stagnant.
I’ve also appeared on WP Build’s This Week in WordPress a couple of times! I was on episode 347 and episode 355. That has been great at boosting my visibility in the community and connecting with others. It has been so much fun so my to-do is book myself on a few more episodes in 2026.
Sponsorships
I am again sponsoring Colwyn Bay FC – which is looking to be the biggest and best season we have had in the Welsh league at the time of writing. I also sponsored Earlestown Cricket Club for the 2025 season, which saw us win the Hampson Cup. The final time the trophy will be defended for now, so it’s nice we’re on that cup – for the first time in our history.
I am also sponsoring the Sharks Netball Club for this season as well, as a Matchball sponsor. So if you see more Instagram reels on my Instagram account, that’ll be why!
Highlights for 2026?
I think I’m going into 2026 with a bit of security behind the business, which is nice. I’m looking to expand into a paid for plugin or a SAAS as a revenue stream, as there was a bit of a wake up call at the start of the year. I’ve diversified a bit, but I can always do better. The product I mentioned in last year’s post? Yeah that didn’t happen.
I’m already booked up for one event – Hive MCR I’m booked on. Of course we’ll create some MWUG events soon. I’m planning on going to WordCamp Europe as I know (and love) Krakow, so it’d be nice to go back there. Maybe a few more events if and when they get announced. I saw WDC2025 on the day it was taking place, so I’d love there to be a 2026, as I feel it aligns with where I am as a developer.
Regarding my offerings, I’ve got work booked up until about middle of January, so I am looking for work starting from mid/late January. Want to find out why I get booked up months in advance? My inbox is open.
Christmas Opening Hours
In closing, my last working day before Christmas is 19th December 2025, at which point I’m reducing to only maintenance tasks and emergencies. I’ll have my laptop and will check my emails every now and again. Obviously if something is wrong (such as a site going down), then I can jump on things.
I return to work on January 5th 2026.
May I wish all readers, clients and colleagues a very Merry Christmas, and a safe and prosperous New Year.
Nadolig Llawen!
Rhys