[BannedInSweden]

The number one way I have obtained good freelance projects is through friends who are primarily artists. They want to do art, hate to code, and are happy to call me when they come across something bigger and more complicated than they can handle (weeding out the $40 and $100 jobs).

Also - Ansible and Docker are... neat. I see/use/talk about these a lot during the day in the big corp world. However, I've never had a freelance client need either. What they generally need is help customizing off the shelf CMS/CRM/POS systems or creating custom replacements.

They also seem to have language/platform preferences from lots of hearsay (nothing solidly informed). Being able to work in their language/platform of choice (despite if its a good choice) has helped me land a lot of work. So I'd keep boning up on your english, and learn the ins and outs of all the major programming languages .net, Java, PHP (yes PHP!), and most of the major Database systems.

I have to imagine that if you do all that and it doesn't work out at least you'll be set for another corporate gig.