6 unusual side hustles to try in 2026 - and how much you can earn

Want a bit of extra cash without giving up your weekend to boredom? Side hustles don’t have to mean doing repetitive data entry or filling out endless surveys. They can be about trying something new, developing a hidden talent, or meeting new people.

Whether you’re snapping photos, flipping furniture or bottling fresh air (yes, this is actually a thing), these ideas could put a few quid in your pocket and a grin on your face. Let’s dive in.

1. Become a TV or film extra

You get paid to appear in the background of films, TV shows, or adverts, meet new people and meet celebs. You won’t need to learn any lines or have any acting talent in particular. You just need to stand in scenes like pubs, streets, or crowds to make things look real.

How do you get started as an extra

To get started as a TV or film extra, you should:

• Sign up with a casting agency – popular options in the UK include Casting Collectives and Universal Extras
• Submit a clear headshot of yourself – you don’t need to go full glam, a photo against a plain backdrop is best
• Submit some basic info about yourself – your height, clothing size, any distinguishing features and even any special talents that could be relevant

Once you’re on the books, agencies will email you jobs. You turn up if you’re free, follow directions, and get paid.

How much can you earn as an extra

The pay rate for TV extras starts at around £100 per day but can go up to around £250 per day depending on when you’re shooting, the scale of the production and the requirements of the role.

2. Flip furniture and sell it on online marketplaces

Facebook marketplace is full of free or cheap furniture that’s in desperate need of a little TLC. From dark wood coffee tables to wobbly chairs, there are lots of opportunities to nab a piece, jazz it up, and make a profit if you’re good at what you do.

How to get started with furniture flipping

This side hustle requires a certain level of skill and some basic materials to make it work. You’ll likely need stuff like sugar soap, sanding paper, furniture paint, brushes and other materials to help you transfo rm the piece.

It can be a profitable little side business, but it’s probably best you only try it out if you have a little cash to put in and if you’re genuinely interested in upcycling.

Here's how it works:

• Buy cheap furniture or get it free from places like Facebook marketplace or charity shops
• Clean, sand down, upcycle – this could mean painting a lighter colour, polishing, fixing if it’s broken, or even hand-painting a design to make it truly stand out
• Once it’s looking good, take some decent photos of your creation and upload it to various online marketplaces; price it to take into account the materials used and your time, but look at similar pieces and what they’re selling for to get a realistic idea of what it costs
• Wait for offers and sell to the highest bidder

How much can you earn

How much you can earn depends largely on your level of skill and the demand for that particular piece. There are some really unique upcycled pieces that sell for hundreds of pounds, for example.

One DIY-savvy couple managed to make around £6,000 in profit from their upcycling business, working on pieces around their full-time jobs.

3. Sell your photos on stock photo websites

You don’t need a fancy camera to sell stock photos online. Most smartphones now have quality built-in cameras, so if you’ve been wanting to put your photo skills to good use and earn some coffee money, now’s your chance.

A word of caution though – AI image generation means there is more and more competition on stock websites while many people who’d normally licence a photo now generate their own with AI. This means the market is oversaturated making it difficult to earn more than a few pounds here and there.

How to get started

You don’t need much to get started. A phone with a decent camera, a free editing tool, and access to the internet is pretty much it. Here’s what to do:

• Get a camera or phone take takes clear shots
• Take and lightly edit your photos to make them pop
• Pick a popular niche where there’s demand for stock imagery
• Upload to sites like Shutterstock or Adobe Stock – you'll need to upload them, write descriptions and tag them so they’re findable by other users which can be time-consuming

How much you can earn from your stock photos

Real talk, earnings aren’t exactly jaw-dropping. On average, photographers make £0.02 to £0.25 per image per month depending on how often the image is licenced. Some images take off and make loads, most make little to nothing. Beginners make coffee money, somewhere between £0 to £20 a month is not uncommon.

Professional photographers who have been at it for years and have massive portfolios can rake in hundreds or even thousands of pounds each month, but these are outliers so you shouldn’t really bank on it unless you’re willing to put in lots of time and effort over several years.

4. Jar up air and sell it to people living in polluted cities

Nope, we aren’t joking. People will pay good money for the right kind of air. If you live near an idyllic spot like the Lake District or Snowdonia, for example, you could be missing a trick.

A few years ago, a Dorset family made headlines when they bottled air from the hillsides, put it in jars, and then sold it for £80 a jar mostly to clients in China where pollution levels are high.

How to get started

• Source pretty mason jars and come up with fun labels like “Lake District mist”, bonus points if you’re good at calligraphy and hand-write your labels
• Collect your air in the jars and seal them
• Put them up on sites like Etsy or eBay and market them as novelty products

How much could you earn

We’re honestly a little sceptical about this venture but simply had to include it as it definitely fit the “unusual side hustle” criteria.

That said, the Dorset family business we mentioned managed to sell around 100 jars at £80 a pop, raking in around £8,000 in revenue. And given air is freely available, the outgoings won’t have been massive either.

All we’re saying is, don’t stock up on mason jars, try it out first and see if it takes off before investing any of your hard-earned cash (or tons of time).

5. Rent out your driveway

Parking comes at a premium, especially in cities, so if you have a driveway spot you’re not using, you could be leaving money on the table.

How to get started

This is one of the easier side hustles to pull off as all you really need is a free driveway space. Here’s how to get started:

• Check in with your home insurer and mortgage lender or landlord to get permission if you need it
• Sign up for a site like YourParkingSpace or JustPark to list your driveway, and set availability and rates
• Get paid when people book your driveway

How much could you earn from renting your driveway

Earnings vary massively depending on where you live. JustPark says many of their hosts earn between £50 to £300 a month, which isn’t bad given that the site manages absolutely everything once you’ve uploaded your ad. So, simply listing an ad and forgetting about it could bring you in around £600 a year on the low end. Not bad for a low effort side hustle.

6. Become a queue sitter

Queuing is a national sport here in the UK. But, not everyone is keen on it. If you’re happy to stand in line for people, whether that’s for the latest PlayStation drop or new iPhone, you could make some serious cash.

How to get started as a line sitter

• Sign up for a site like TaskRabbit or advertise your services on local Facebook community groups
• Book queue sitting jobs and turn up nice and early
• Get paid after each job

Sitting in a queue can be cold, wet and boring. But we reckon if you dress for the season, and bring your Kindle and your headphones, you could make decent cash for not much effort.

How much could you earn as a queue sitter

Rates vary, but you can expect to make in the region of £10 to £20 per hour of queuing, and on the higher end in cities or once you build up a bit of a name for yourself.

A couple of years ago, one Londoner managed to make £160 a day from his professional queuing, though to be fair, he treated it as more of a full-time job than the occasional side hustle.

A quick word on taxes...

So there you go, six unusual side hustles to help you make a few extra quid in 2026 and maybe even have some fun.

Just a quick word on taxes though, if you earn more than £1,000 from your side hustle, you’ll probably need to file a tax return. It’s not scary or anything, and there’s plenty of information on the government website if you need help registering for self assessment.