Digital labour platforms, such as those used for ride-hailing, food delivery, or online freelancing, offer flexible work but often at the expense of job security and rights. Many workers face low pay, unpredictable hours, and limited protections. Globally, these challenges affect around 84 million people. With gig work rapidly expanding, how can research help make the platform economy fairer for workers?
Researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute created Fairwork, a global programme that evaluates the working conditions offered by digital labour platforms. Led by Professor Mark Graham, the team worked with governments, platform companies, gig workers, and trade unions to develop a set of five principles of fair platform work: fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management, and fair representation. Each year, platforms around the world are rated against these principles, with findings published publicly to hold companies accountable and push for change.
Since 2018, Fairwork has rated 716 companies in 40 countries. That research is not only the basis for broad academic outputs – the research team has produced over 50 academic publications to the middle of 2025 – but has had the effect of actively improving the lives of workers through direct engagement with companies.
It's important to think about contractors as real people and not just numbers, and at TranscribeMe we believe that a community-focused worker management approach delivers better quality products while fostering a positive environment for the workers. The Fairwork team has helped us improve our processes in a way that is quantifiable and we appreciate the opportunity to participate in the ratings report.
Nathan Pikover
Chief Operating Officer, TranscribeMe
The Fairwork project has led to tangible improvements in the gig economy:
Fairwork is coordinated by a team based at the Oxford Internet Institute and the Social Science Research Centre Berlin (WZB). Members of the coordinating team work together to manage the overall function and strategy of the project, and to support the rest of the global team with research and dissemination. They also carry out their own research on Fairwork topics.
