Paid Online Survey Income and the UK Election

Apologies for those readers from outside the UK and those who don't take part in paid surveys - this article deals specifically with the UK election and it's effect on my survey income (although for those of you outside the UK it may still be relevant if you have elections where you live).

As you probably already know, I am a user of online paid surveys and have even written reviews on online paid surveys to assist others.

You may (or may not) also realise that, at the time of writing, there is an upcoming election in the UK. This is the first election since 1997 when at such a late stage there is still uncertainty over which party will win the election, or indeed if there is a need for a coalition government. As a result, it seems that every day every major national paper releases another opinion poll which gives an idea of the voting intention for the UK. One such poll company, Yougov, releases at least one poll every day of which over 1000 people are polled in each which results in over 7000 survey responses per week. Assuming that a number of people don't respond to survey invitation for whatever reason we could almost assume that Yougov sends out over 10,000 survey invitations a week just related to the upcoming general election. And this is just one polling company - there are a many active so since the election had been called I wouldn't be surprised if each and every week there are over 50,000-100,000 online paid survey invitations which are linked to the UK general election.

I myself have taken part in several such surveys - some which are directly asking which party I would vote for and others asking other questions which are nonetheless linked to the election eg Would I feel more or less financially secure if the result of the election was a hung parliament?

Considering all the facts, I would estimate that the election has increased the amount of online paid survey invitations by at least 20-30% which would be a fair amount if I filled in every survey I was invited to (due to time constraints I tend to pick and choose my surveys). I would estimate I receive enough survey invitations to earn £30-£40 a week and so the election would be responsible for about £5 per week.

I am assuming this is a national trend for those who complete online paid surveys although I do live in an unusual area in so much as anyone of the three main parties potentially have a reasonable chance of winning in this seat and so this may have resulted in me being more significant in the eyes of the polling companies. Whatever the reason I don't mind as it means I should manage to earn a little bit extra over the next few weeks from online paid surveys.