Being self-employed can be as good as it gets. No nine-to-five treadmill, no one barking orders at you, no stressful commuting every day. It's you who calls the shots.

If you are your own boss you might stand alone but you are most definitely not alone. The self-employed are widespread in today's flexible, global workplace ranging from authors to IT staff and business entrepreneurs.

With independence, however, comes a price. Working for yourself can be a hard slog. It's hard to prove your income - which is often irregular - and as such you'll have a hard time securing a mortgage.

Some experts estimate that three million people in the UK, or 10% of the working population, are self-employed. This figure shoots up to eight million when you include other people with unconventional incomes such as contract staff, workers who don't get computerised payslips and mini-moguls who earn their crust through investments - buy-to-let landlords and stock market flutterers, for example.

The numbers rise again when you take those with two incomes. This includes people who work and have pensions, divorcees with maintenance payments and employees with day jobs who slave away in the evenings as taxi drivers or bouncers or working as bar staff.

All these people with erratic incomes do not always have access to accountancy records or wage slips - mandatory evidence of your income when securing a standard home loan. And if you can't provide PAYE marked payslips or an accountant's certification of your income conventional mortgages may be unobtainable.

Help is at hand, however. Self-certification mortgages are specifically designed for those who can't prove their income in the usual way.

Whether you're a first time buyer, or looking to move to your next property, an independent advisor will locate the best deals for you.

Simply complete our no obligation enquiry form and an expert mortgage advisor will get back to you with the best products currently available in the UK.