If the market is bad for your area then you may be better off finding another area (be it geographical or skills.) Opening up your own dev shop is one way to o

If the market is bad for your area then you may be better off finding another area (be it geographical or skills.) Opening up your own dev shop is one way to open up your geographical area (remote dev) but that requires the extra skill set of being able to sell. Those numbers do look pretty bad but I suppose that may be the reality of the market there. I'm a U.S. citizen living in the Philippines but there is no way I could / would work on local wages here. So, all of my work comes in from outside the Philippines. In the meantime, there is probably something you could do with what you have there. Rather than looking at budgets being too low, instead look at what you can deliver for those budgets. A budget of only $100 is great if it's something which only takes you an hour or two to knock out. So, client needs a custom back-end for $500, then install Drupal and get as close as you can with add-ons and as little custom development as possible. A PHP based CMS may not be your idea of fun, but being flexible is what will allow you to survive. Going independent means that you will have to build a brand for yourself. Position yourself as an authority and do whatever you can to stand out from the crowd. Build exposure by writing code which others will take notice of and use. Place yourself in communities where paying clients might be hanging out at. Branch out from your current skill base so that you can get exposure to things which paying clients are looking at. For example, Wordpress support forums are loaded with people trying to get help with things they are working on, or looking for developers to take on their projects. Anything e-commerce is also huge because clients are looking for ways to build carts / payment systems into their sites. I see Twitter posts all day long where people are asking for help or looking for developers. As others have mentioned, Elance and Odesk are decent places to look also. Don't get tunnel vision. Open up your eyes and get creative.