freelance work acceptable?

Hi

As a British citizen (born n bred) my brother plans to get married to his fiance (who lives in Pakistan) next year.

At the moment the challenge is of getting a job in his field.

My question is:

If he cannot get a full time job. How acceptable is it (for the visa application) if he does freelance work. For example does paid projects for various people a graphic designer?

There are two routes to this.

Firstly - self employment - which would require at least a set of accounts to show - so he'll probably need 12 months of work (where he's bringing in over the threshold) + all the bits that come with this (self employment NICs etc).

Secondly - short term contracts - again - in theory fine, but he's going to have to show his income over the 12 month period is above the threshold.

If he's having that much troubling finding a permanent job - keeping that constant income flow so that it's above the threshold could be more tricky.

M.