Top 10 online jobs for student

On this page you’ll find all the best ways to make money in your spare time whilst at university based on our own experience. We’ll keep adding new ways to this page so go ahead and bookmark it. And please do share your own ideas in the comments!

1. Review music for money

If you love music, make it your business by reviewing unsigned bands and artists for cash. I know… we couldn’t believe it either.

It can take a while to build up your reputation but some users of the site have said that they have earned £40 a month. This may not sound like much but if it’s something you enjoy then it shouldn’t be hard work and is another thing for your CV. Money you earn will be in $US but anyone can sign up and review. To get started, head over to Slicethepie now. 

2.Competitions

Entering competitions of course comes with no guarantees, but there is a growing community of so-called ‘compers’ in the UK consistently making up to £50,000 a year through all sorts of competitions.

Types of competitions available to enter range from simple registration forms and Facebook page liking to answering questions correctly over the phone to being a TV game show contestant. Imagine you made it onto Deal or No Deal instead of just watching it!

Start by entering our very own monthly student competition. 

3. Claim tax back

Many students work part-time or during the summer months, and others will be on placements or paid internships. More often than not, if you are a student working during the year, you will be overpaying income tax.

Why? Simply because few students reach the personal tax-free income allowance each year but are put on an emergency basic tax-code by their employers meaning tax is being paid when it shouldn’t be.

 Use our student tax-back service to help you reclaim any tax you should not have paid. Just enter your details in the calculator here to work out what you may be owed. Otherwise for more information read our guide on claiming tax back here.

4. Get cashback when shopping

This is not only a way to make money but also to save money as a student. If you look at it in a different way then you are making money with every purchase you would have made anyway, whether it be 10% or 0.5% cashback.

There are a number of cashback sites out there which pay you the commission they otherwise would have earned.

We recommend signing up with both Top Cashback and Quidco.com which are free and offer the best selection of retailers and exclusives.

5. A part-time job

A part-time job is the obvious first choice, opted for by most students looking to supplement their student loan. It provides a pretty steady flow of income and can enable you to gain valuable work experience.

However, depending on where you live, jobs are not always easy to find. Check local classifieds, our student job search, student job websites and your university careers service for vacancies.

It’s also worth signing up with the Graduate Recruitment Bureau, a free service which will match you with both part-time jobs or graduate opportunities.

6. Gigs on Fiverr

Fiverr is now the world’s largest marketplace for people to make money selling small services (known as ‘gigs’).

What you offer could be absolutely anything, from writing and translating, social media posting, playing pranks and teaching to creating music, voiceovers and short video clips for people all around the world!
The default price is $5 (hence Fiverr..), but you can attach extra services to gigs for more money. Whilst it might not seem like much, it can quickly add up and there are plenty of examples of people making a really good living from the site. The key is to get a system in place which minimises the time spent on each gig.
But there is another way to profit even more from Fiverr for potentially far less work. How? By simply reselling gigs elsewhere. For example, find a decent logo designer then reply to jobs on Elance or even local classifieds. A $5 spend can easily become $50+, and it’s repeatable!
If you’re not interested in selling at all there’s SO much good stuff you can get done for yourself. Have a browse and get inspired!

7. Sell second-hand course books
One great way to make money is to buy other students’ text books at the end of the year, and then sell them just after freshers’ week – when the new intake of students know that they need them!
You can either advertise on campus or list them online very easily on Amazon.co.uk Books Trade-In (just bear in mind they take a commission on books sold).

8. Become an Amazon ‘Mechanical Turk’
Don’t ask us what this means, all we know is that it’s an easy way to make fast cash from your sofa. The concept is based on ‘internet crowd-sourcing’ where businesses advertise specific, scalable tasks they need completing quickly.
There are a variety of tasks (known as HITS), but most commonly they involve mindless data entry or form filling. You are rewarded in cash (though $USD) for the work you do, and you can choose for what and when you work. Give it a go [Update: Currently US signups only, try ClickWorker].

 9. Buy and sell domain names
A domain name is just a website address (eg. ‘savethestudent.org’ or ‘mysite.co.uk’) and there are lots of extensions (.com, .net, .co.uk etc).

They cost as little as £1.99 to register with 123-reg.co.uk or GoDaddy.com yet premium domain names can fetch £1,000s if not millions when sold on. In 2007 VacationRentals.com went for a cool $35m!
Now you’re probably not going to come across anything like that, but you can still turn a quick profit with a bit of searching. The trick is to find available domain names which have some commercial value, snap them up and then list them for sale on a site like DomainLore.

10. Be an extra
Do you fancy yourself as a budding young actor or just that person that walks past in the background shot of an episode of Eastenders? It could be you if you apply to be an extra.
The pay isn’t bad either – £60-80 a day on average, and you hardly have to do anything!
You can apply at Be On Screen for a number of opportunities or 2020 casting is another agency (just know they take a cut from your earnings).