I work as a contract DevOps guy (mostly out of disgust at the agency recruitment model now prevalent in Britain) and hunt down all my own work. I'd say it's 50

I work as a contract DevOps guy (mostly out of disgust at the agency recruitment model now prevalent in Britain) and hunt down all my own work. I'd say it's 50% word-of-mouth, 50% HN. IMO the single best thing you can do to attract clients is show good communication skills (i.e. write a good ad) and a track record of successful projects.