If such a well-qualified person wants to work for any wage, it will distort the market in the first place (i.e. clients will be even less willing to pay decent rates if people with his qualifications work for any amount). Why doesn't he work for open source projects on his own initiative and at his own discretion and try to finance himself via Patreon or similar? Or he could solve interesting problems for companies at his own risk, let the company check the suitability of the solution (initially as closed source), and then sell it for a fixed price "as is" (including source code). This way the company can save the specification effort, is more willing to outsource the project and the consultant can demonstrate its qualification directly with the solution and the speed with which it develops it. This has worked for me for many years, and I don't have to convince my customers with cheap rates.