That's a totally fair point. As soon as you're operating as a business and not an employee, you're typically subject to most/all of the same regulations and lack of personal/employee safeguards as any other business, even if you're just a one-man operation. You can risk setting out without knowing the number of a good lawyer and a good accountant, but personally I'd never advise anyone to do that.

The one positive thing I will say on this point is that once you've been through the major formalities the first time (setting up a legal company entity, getting your first contract written and signed, filing a year's worth of whatever tax records you need in your area, any other annual paperwork like the Companies House filing in the UK), it's usually not as bad as it sounds. The first year or so is quite a learning curve, but as long as you're reasonably organised, habitually keep accurate records, and are willing to pay for a modest amount of professional help from people whose job is to stay up-to-date on technicalities and recent changes so you don't have to, the overheads are rarely more than a half-day a month, at least here in the UK. It requires diligence, but not a PhD in rocket science.

I cannot speak for the UK (I've never done business there) but becoming a freelancer in the US is very easy. You can incorporate effectively online for a few hundred dollars, and in your first year, if you don't have the revenue to justify an accountant, you can do all the tax prep you'll need online. Again, in the US, most of the stuff in consulting agreements protects the client, not the consultant.