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If you’re a freelancer working with WordPress, 2025 is shaping up to be an exciting yet competitive year. Get this, WordPress now powers over 43% of the web, and that number isn’t shrinking anytime soon.
I know, I know, you hear the stat about WordPress all the time but it wouldn't be a pro WordPress post without a mention.
After 15 years of working in WordPress development, I’ve learned (sometimes the hard way) that there are certain must-have skills that make all the difference. Let’s break down the 10 WordPress skills every freelancer should master in 2025 to stay ahead of the curve.
Before we even get into the technical side, let’s talk about mindset. One of the biggest lessons I learned the hard way was trusting myself to figure things out.
I still remember my first day, at my first 9-5 job as a WordPress developer. I was assigned a task I had no idea how to complete. Every doubt imaginable crept into my head—I thought I wasn’t good enough, and I almost quit.
But I didn’t. I forced myself to slow down, break the problem into smaller pieces, and trust my ability to learn. After hours of trial and error, I figured it out—and looked like a rockstar for solving the problem.
Now, after years in this industry, I can tell you this: WordPress development isn’t about knowing everything. It’s about knowing how to find answers, troubleshoot, and adapt. Some tasks are easy, some are incredibly hard—but if you train yourself to stay calm and problem-solve, you’ll always figure it out.
Yes, this sounds basic, but really knowing the WordPress dashboard makes all the difference. Most freelancers just scratch the surface—installing plugins, adding pages, tweaking settings. But deep knowledge of the dashboard means:
Gutenberg has come a long way, and while Divi and Elementor still have a place, WordPress is pushing hard toward native Full Site Editing (FSE). Learning how to fully leverage the block editor now will put you ahead of those clinging to old-school page builders.
And guess what? A lot of veteran WordPress devs hate learning new tricks—which means you can pass those who haven't committed to adopting Gutenberg and FSE quite yet.
There’s one plugin I recommend to every client and use on almost every project: Advanced Custom Fields Pro (ACF Pro). It’s been a game-changer for me, turning WordPress from a basic CMS into a dynamic content machine. I’ve built everything from custom dashboards to complex product catalogs with ACF Pro, and every time, it’s made the process faster, cleaner, and easier to maintain.
If you’ve never used ACF Pro, you’re missing out on the most powerful tool in WordPress. It lets you:
I still remember a project where a client needed a fully customizable real estate listing system inside WordPress—without using a bloated third-party plugin. ACF Pro made it easy. I structured their listings with custom fields for property details, dynamic maps, and image galleries, and the client could manage everything without ever touching a line of code.
If you’re serious about WordPress freelancing in 2025, master ACF Pro. Clients love it because it makes their sites easy to manage, and developers love it because it keeps things structured, scalable, and future-proof.
Freelancers who rely only on pre-built themes are at the mercy of what’s available. If you want true control, you need to understand theme development.
I started my WordPress journey by learning custom PHP development first, which gave me a deep understanding of how themes function under the hood. Rather than relying on existing themes, I learned how to modify and build them from scratch, which opened up far more possibilities for customization.
Being able to customize a theme properly requires knowledge of:
When you understand how a theme works, you’re not just another WordPress user—you’re a developer who can shape websites exactly as clients envision them.
Nearly every WordPress developer has encountered a bloated, sluggish website at some point. Whether it’s an overloaded theme, excessive plugins, or poorly optimized assets, performance issues are a constant problem. Clients often come to you in a panic—maybe they just launched a new feature and suddenly their site is crawling, or they inherited a poorly built site from a previous developer.
This is why performance optimization is such a valuable skill. The ability to diagnose speed issues and implement improvements makes you indispensable. A skilled developer knows how to trim unnecessary scripts, optimize images, leverage caching solutions, and streamline code to create a fast, efficient website. Not only does this enhance user experience and reduce bounce rates, but it also keeps clients happy when they see tangible improvements in their site’s performance metrics.
Mastering these areas ensures you’ll always be in demand as a performance-focused WordPress developer.
I don’t offer SEO as a service, but I understand the basics, which is important for WordPress development. Clients often assume that WordPress developers are also SEO experts, so having a foundational knowledge is beneficial.
A strong WordPress developer should be able to:
If a client needs in-depth SEO work, I always recommend hiring a specialist, but having these SEO basics covered helps ensure that the site is built on a solid foundation.
Over 60% of web traffic comes from mobile devices, so being able to build and troubleshoot responsive websites is essential. Clients often approach me because they added new content, switched themes, or lost touch with their original developer and now have mobile usability issues.
To handle any responsive design challenge, I focus on:
A WordPress freelancer who understands responsive design isn’t just someone who can tweak layouts—they’re someone who ensures every feature they add works across all devices from the beginning.
A hacked WordPress site can quickly become your responsibility, even if the client neglected security. In my experience, security issues don’t come up too often, thanks to solid plugins like SolidWP, Defender, and Wordfence doing most of the heavy lifting. However, when something does go wrong, knowing how to troubleshoot is invaluable.
It’s helpful to know how to:
Even though security may not be your primary focus as a WordPress developer, having these troubleshooting skills ensures that when a client reaches out in a panic, you can either resolve the issue or guide them in the right direction.
WooCommerce is an important part of WordPress development, even if it’s not something I focus on exclusively. When WooCommerce projects come up, I rely on my base WordPress development skills to troubleshoot, modify templates, and extend functionality as needed.
There’s a common sentiment that WordPress is dead, and by extension, so is WooCommerce—replaced by Shopify as the dominant eCommerce platform. That’s true if you’re only looking at one segment: direct-to-consumer products. But eCommerce is much broader than that, and WooCommerce remains king in the B2B space, where businesses sell parts, supplies, and services that don’t fit the Shopify model.
Most of the work I do with WooCommerce involves customizing templates and adding features to enhance the store or sales process. Clients often come to me when they need:
WooCommerce isn’t going anywhere. While Shopify is a great platform for consumer products, there’s never a shortage of businesses that need WooCommerce developers to tailor their stores to their specific needs. The demand for skilled WordPress developers who understand WooCommerce is steady, and knowing how to navigate its ecosystem makes you a valuable asset in the marketplace.
WordPress development is only half the job. If you can’t communicate well, set clear expectations, and manage projects effectively, you’ll struggle to maintain long-term success. Many freelancers focus so much on the technical aspects of WordPress that they neglect the business side—yet, this is where real career growth happens.
A WordPress freelancer who masters both development and client communication becomes far more valuable than a developer who just codes. Strong business skills help you land better projects, build lasting client relationships, and scale your freelance career beyond just trading hours for dollars.
Looking at all of these skills at once might feel overwhelming, and honestly, I get it. But I didn’t wake up one day with all of this knowledge—I’ve been steadily building these skills over my 15-year WordPress career. The good news? It doesn’t have to take that long.
WordPress is such a vast ecosystem that even if you focused on just one of these skills and truly mastered it, that alone could be enough to build a profitable, successful career. There are WordPress professionals who focus only on performance optimization, security, or WooCommerce customization, and they make a great living doing so.
But if you take the time to master all of these skills, you’ll have the freedom to work on the projects you want, charge premium rates, and build a career entirely on your terms. To me, having these skills feels like living in a massive garden where I can pick the fruit I want, whenever I want.
So whether you’re just getting started or leveling up your career, take it one step at a time. Every new skill you learn makes you more valuable, and before you know it, you’ll have the confidence and expertise to handle anything WordPress throws your way. Here’s to a successful 2025 and beyond!
