depends what software you use for your work.

if this is your bread and butter, and if the software are not optimized for Apple Silicon -- you'd sit this one out for the time being until they get optimized.

in that case the base model MBA should be good for you.

8GB unified memory is very similar to 16GB RAM in other laptops. so that means you don't have to spend extra for 16GB unified memory
only consider 16GB unified memory if doing heavy lifting tasks like 3D animation render