Alex De Ruyter is Professor and Director of the Centre for Brexit Studies at Birmingham City University. He has been involved in two ESRC-funded studies related to the phenomenon of flexible and contingent working, and completed his PhD on the uses of non-standard employees in Australian hospitals. His research in the area of flexible and precarious work has been published in European Journal of Industrial Relations, Work, Employment & Society, International Journal of Human Resource Management and British Journal of Industrial Relations.

1. Introduction2. Theorizing the gig economy3. Working in the gig economy: international trends4. Regulation and the lived experience of the gig economy5. Conclusions and implications: from wage economy to gig economy to automated ("no") economy