Nigeria has competitive talents among freelance professionals, who actively use digital technologies to attract global companies. However, no matter how much effort you invest, certain things are not up to individuals, as they have deeper roots and can be institutional problems.

The only thing digital workers can do is take advantage of tech innovations to bypass limitations, become more competitive, and so on. This article analyzes the most important challenges people face and provides insights on where the Nigerian digital workforce is heading in the global market.

Navigating Payment Barriers with Proxy Servers

Some global payment platforms do not fully operate in Nigeria, meaning some of their features are still unavailable. For sure, this creates a headache for people who deal with international transactions as a part of their job. For example, although it’s possible to use PayPal to send money from Nigeria, receiving direct payments into a Nigerian account is still restricted.

Due to the lack of better alternative options, they keep using such services through tech innovations, such as proxy servers. These can be convenient, and most of the time, even free of charge. In particular, residential proxy servers help people bypass geo-restrictions effectively, since they use real ISP-assigned addresses. It means the IP you browse from is coming from a real residential address in another country like the USA, Germany, and so forth.

Using proxy servers can be a problem-solver, but another issue is the awareness of people or their level of tech-savviness. Sometimes, users in general may not realize that certain technical barriers can be avoided with the use of simple software. On the other hand, third-party applications are great, but having services that operate with limited functionalities is stressful and inconvenient anyway.

Global Market Competitiveness of Nigerian Freelancers

Aside from technical solutions, Nigerian freelancers also face tough global competition. In the last ten years, the number of freelancers around the world has grown a lot. There are now hundreds of millions of people doing online gig work, thanks to remote jobs and digital platforms.

To stand out, Nigerians often leverage competitive pricing and niche skills. In fact, a recent analysis found that Nigeria’s freelancers are among the most affordable – averaging about $163 per job, the lowest in Africa according to Upwork data .

This can contribute to the competitiveness among hundreds of thousands of freelancers globally, but it certainly has an underlying economic factor, as Nigerians may feel pressured to underprice their services, which means they will have to do double the amount of work to ensure earnings are enough to cover monthly expenses. With this being said, the price of services itself is not a standalone advantage, because Nigerian professionals really have the expertise, especially in fields like software development, digital marketing, design etc. The combination of these factors helps them to offer quality at affordable prices.

Infrastructure and Digital Literacy

If you remember, we briefly mentioned problems that have deeper roots than what individuals may be able to fix or bypass themselves. Infrastructure is one of them, as the country still struggles when it comes to supplying steady power or reliable internet connectivity. As a matter of fact, by early 2024, only about 45.5% of Nigerians had internet access, so more than half the population is still offline. These issues can cause delays and hurt communication with clients, which affects their reputation.

Digital literacy is the other side of readiness. Nigeria has an ambitious goal to achieve 90-95% digital literacy by 2030, recognizing that a tech-savvy workforce is needed to fully participate in the digital economy.

To Sum Up

What we see here is just the result of analysis, but it doesn’t mean the reality is constant or that some struggles hold people back from pursuing a competitive career. The good news about the global advancement of technology is that it doesn’t know geographic limits, and every positive change somewhere in the world finds its reflection in local markets as well.

This is one explanation for why Nigeria is in the process of becoming a country ready for digital transformation. People are eager to obtain new knowledge, and that’s the most important factor making them in demand in the competitive field of freelance work.