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Hire freelance and contract desk researchers worldwide
YunoJuno connects you with vetted freelance and contract desk researchers who find, check and summarize information from published sources. Onboard, contract and pay them in 165+ countries, with compliance handled for you.
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150,000+
165+
<24 hrs
Why hire a freelance desk researcher?
Good decisions start with good information, and finding it takes time. A freelance desk researcher brings the skill to search efficiently, judge sources and produce clear, reliable summaries, so teams can move faster.
Freelancers also give you flexibility. Add a desk researcher for a pitch, a market scan, a background study, a literature review or a rush project, then scale back when it's done. Many bring sector knowledge and language skills.
One directory for every desk researcher
Compliant and vetted
Keep up with payments
How does hiring a freelance desk researcher work on YunoJuno?
Create your brief
Browse and book desk researchers
Contract, work and pay in one place
What does a freelance desk researcher do?
A freelance desk researcher gathers and analyzes existing information, on a project or contract basis. They search published sources, reports, databases, news, filings and data, check reliability, and organize findings into briefings, market overviews, fact files and sourced summaries. They work from existing sources, rather than running new interviews or surveys. Typical responsibilities include:
How much does it cost to hire a freelance desk researcher?
Day rates for freelance desk researchers vary with sector and topic knowledge, languages, seniority, the breadth of the brief, and location. Each freelancer's day rate is shown on their YunoJuno profile, so you can compare options against your budget before you get in touch.
Every year, YunoJuno analyzes data from the projects booked through the platform and publishes it in the Contractor Rates Report. Download the latest rates report to benchmark day rates and project trends.
Manage your freelance desk researchers beyond the hire
Onboarding
Worker classification
Contracts, including IP assignement
Timesheets & approvals
Payments
Reporting & spend visibility
Enterprise teams already seeing results
"YunoJuno is a seamless experience and takes a lot of the stress away. Itreally helps from an agility and productivity perspective, quickly answering the business needs and helping to create a much more diverse and output-focused team. The quick payment of freelancers is a game changer — we have managed to reduce time to hire from a week to a couple of hours."
"There were a few critical results for us. The obvious one was keeping everything housed in one place — payments and keeping track of monthly spending. Perhaps more importantly, we were able to build up a bulletproof directory of talent. This has been super helpful for us as a team and as a business, across our regions."
Frequently asked questions
Hire a freelance desk researcher when you need background on a market, topic or competitor quickly, when a pitch or proposal needs evidence, or when your team lacks time to search and summarize. They're also useful for fact-checking, for literature reviews and for covering a vacancy.
Desk researchers vary by sector, source and language. Some specialize in market and industry research, others in academic literature, public data, news or sector databases such as legal or healthcare. Many cover several languages. For new primary research, consider a qualitative researcher or quantitative researcher. For advice on approach, a market research consultant may fit. Match their experience to your sector and sources.
Browse all freelance researchers on YunoJuno.
Look for a mix of search and writing skills:
- Strong search skills across databases and the open web
- Ability to judge source quality and spot bias
- Experience in your sector or topic
- Accurate fact-checking and referencing
- Clear, concise writing and summaries
- Data handling in Excel or similar tools
- Language skills, where relevant
- Speed and reliability on deadlines
Useful questions to ask before you book:
- Which topics and sectors have you researched?
- Which sources and databases do you use?
- How do you judge reliability and recency?
- How do you structure and reference findings?
- How do you handle conflicting information?
- What outputs do you deliver, such as briefings or data tables?
- How do you manage tight deadlines?
- Can you share sample work?
The cost of a freelance desk researcher depends mainly on sector and topic knowledge, languages, seniority, the breadth of the brief, and location. Freelancers set their own day rates, which you can see on their YunoJuno profile before you make contact.
For benchmarks, see YunoJuno's Contractor Rates Report, built from rates data on projects booked through the platform. For what it costs to use YunoJuno itself, see the pricing page.
Post a brief or search the network, and book a freelance desk researcher based in or outside your own country. YunoJuno supports payments in 165+ countries and assesses worker classification for every engagement, so you can engage independent talent without managing the compliance work yourself. That includes US contractor compliance for 1099 and W-2 engagements and IR35 status determinations in the UK, as part of YunoJuno's wider global compliance coverage.
It is also fast. Onboarding takes under 5 minutes, worker classification around 15 minutes, and a contract can be in place in under 24 hours. YunoJuno also provides misclassification indemnification, adding protection if a classification is ever challenged.
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