Potential of van driver / average earning

alwaysfree143

Hello friends,

I am thiking to start a new career as a van driver. So I have quite a few questions in mind and hopefully somebody will answer it. Before I begin let me please introduce myself. I am 26 years old and lives in London.

1) I do not have any prior experience of driving a van but have a car licence since last year. How different is it driving a van as compared to the ordinary car?

2) Is there any minimum requirement to hold a licence for certain years before you can work as a van driver? For example in order to do taxi you need to have at least 3 years old licence in London?

3) I have contacted with couple of courier companies in my local area and some of them invited me for an interview (and I am yet to attend any). I am wondering what is the potential of van drivers in London/Essex or in UK in general.

I was thinking if I do spend about £4000 - £8000 pounds to purchase a van and an expensive insurance on top, how is it going to repay me back as a van driver/owner if I am not able to get enough work?

Could you advice about the normal working hours and the average income I hope to generate per month?

4) One of the courier company asked me to purchase the van before i call them back, what type of van do you recommend me? I am thinking to buy Ford Transit or Ford Transit Connect. I would prefer to have a smaller van right now as I only have the car driving experience but is it going to make significant difference if I opt for medium wheel base van?

5) The last question is that if my understanding is correct I am allowed to drive a van such as Ford Transit on an ordinary B Category licence?

HappyMJ

There is plenty of work. You'll never be out of work....but...the profits aren't that much you could quite easily make a profit of about £1 per drop.

The bigger the van the higher the potential profits as you can carry more per run but if you don't fill the van the running costs are higher and could eat into the profits.

alwaysfree143

HappyMJ wrote: »

There is plenty of work. You'll never be out of work....but...the profits aren't that much you could quite easily make a profit of about £1 per drop.

The bigger the van the higher the potential profits as you can carry more per run but if you don't fill the van the running costs are higher and could eat into the profits.

So is it like the company I work with already has plenty of boxes available to be carried away? and I just go pick up boxes and start delivering?

Imagine I buy Ford Transit.. i can easily carry significant number of boxes in it so once I deliver it, I can come back for round two?

If they already have abundance of packages to be taken away, its good and quite encouraging

alwaysfree143

and does it also mean there are plenty of courier services available around London/Essex ?

I will be investing about £8 to £10k before getting something back in return. So i just want to make sure that if something goes wrong with one company, I still have plenty of options available

specialboy

You can get a decent van for £2-£3k as a starter just to see how you get on with the job, a mwb vivaro/transit would be ideal and once you get the feel for the job you can get something bigger/newer if needed.

SailorSam

I think if you surfed around the Internet first you'd find couriers often get a bad name. Say like was suggested earlier you were getting £1 a drop, if the people are out at work or the shops you may have to call 2 or 3 times. Work out how many parcels you'll need to deliver to say earn £10per hour. You've got your van & all the running costs, the drop offs may be a couple of miles apart. And then there's that terrible day the van refuses to start, or it's in the garage for a service or Mot. You may still be committed to do deliveries so will have to hire another vehicle.
Try and find a courier where you'll be employed rather than contracted out, try that for 6mths before you buy your own.

DCFC79

alwaysfree143 wrote: »

Imagine I buy Ford Transit.. i can easily carry significant number of boxes in it so once I deliver it, I can come back for round two?

Yes you could do that but I believe theres a limit as to how long you can be driving for, maybe something for you to research.

bugslet

First off, yes there is always work for vans.

The problem with making money off vans is that, because it isn't rocket science, there's plenty of people willing to be van drivers, hence it drives down the value of the employee ( I use that even though you are talking it would seem about being self-employed).

There have been quite a few threads about being a self-employed van driver, if you hit the search button, then you should dig out some fairly recent threads.

If you are talking about spending the lower amount on a van at 4k, then you need to start thinking about how you will pay for a gearbox/engine when they go.

Factor in insurance ( circa 3k ) as well as repairs, tyres, and you want to work out how much you can earn an hour and don't forget you will have to allow for paying your own NI and tax.

As for driving license, far as I am aware, if you hold a car license, then you can hop in a van. Couple of hours you'll be fine with one, just remember that you have a load in the back and drive accordingly. No minimum age or experience to drive a van. If it's your van, you can make those rules up anyway, it's your van! If you work for someone, than they may ask for 2 years experience and be over 25, but not necessarily.

No advice on working hours, sorry, but it won't be 40;)

If you are talking multi-drop, it's hard hard work - think around 70 - 80 deliveries/collections a day. Some people like it, but if you haven't done anything like it before, it'll be a baptism of fire.

If you have time to come back for round two, then why not. legally you should be driving to GB domestic hours, but legally and van hours don't generally go together too well. ( Ours are on EU hours because they do mixed van/7.5, seperate thing altogether).

Can't say what you will earn if you are subbing for a courier company - is that what you are thinking? - as a van driver working for a transport company, well ours earn about 25k, but tbh, we go abroad and the hours are heavy. Where we are, BTW, we pay good per hour rate and driver retention is ridiculously high, so they are happy.

Think that's it.

bugslet

DCFC79 wrote: »

Yes you could do that but I believe theres a limit as to how long you can be driving for, maybe something for you to research.

Driving 10 hours
Duty 11 hours.

alwaysfree143

bugslet wrote: »

First off, yes there is always work for vans.

The problem with making money off vans is that, because it isn't rocket science, there's plenty of people willing to be van drivers, hence it drives down the value of the employee ( I use that even though you are talking it would seem about being self-employed).

There have been quite a few threads about being a self-employed van driver, if you hit the search button, then you should dig out some fairly recent threads.

If you are talking about spending the lower amount on a van at 4k, then you need to start thinking about how you will pay for a gearbox/engine when they go.

Factor in insurance ( circa 3k ) as well as repairs, tyres, and you want to work out how much you can earn an hour and don't forget you will have to allow for paying your own NI and tax.

As for driving license, far as I am aware, if you hold a car license, then you can hop in a van. Couple of hours you'll be fine with one, just remember that you have a load in the back and drive accordingly. No minimum age or experience to drive a van. If it's your van, you can make those rules up anyway, it's your van! If you work for someone, than they may ask for 2 years experience and be over 25, but not necessarily.

No advice on working hours, sorry, but it won't be 40;)

If you are talking multi-drop, it's hard hard work - think around 70 - 80 deliveries/collections a day. Some people like it, but if you haven't done anything like it before, it'll be a baptism of fire.

If you have time to come back for round two, then why not. legally you should be driving to GB domestic hours, but legally and van hours don't generally go together too well. ( Ours are on EU hours because they do mixed van/7.5, seperate thing altogether).

Can't say what you will earn if you are subbing for a courier company - is that what you are thinking? - as a van driver working for a transport company, well ours earn about 25k, but tbh, we go abroad and the hours are heavy. Where we are, BTW, we pay good per hour rate and driver retention is ridiculously high, so they are happy.

Think that's it.

Thanks a lot for your reply. This is the best post I have read since the day I am researching about becoming a van driver.

Well I am 26 years old but my driving licence is less than 1 year old. That is why it is hard to get a job as a van driver if I am not a van owner. It is glad to hear that the work is there if I am willing to invest some money to purchase a van.

I think I have made my mind of buying a van as I badly need a job these days and this will at least make me active once again. The biggest problem I am having right now is that the courier company I speak to, they demand a van not less than 5-6 years old so that means the van has to be within the range of £5000 - £8000 in order to meet their minimum requirement.

Can you advise a good van which also better in terms of MPG and the vehicle is mechanically good.

SailorSam

Just thought of another thing to keep in mind, if you're making deliveries into central London, don't you have to pay some sort of fee to go in. And once you're there you're going to have to find somewhere to park while you make your deliveries. The Tv shows i've seen never have friendly wardens, the costs could rise.
How about doing something like man-and-van-for-hire. With lots of people living in flats and very mobile moving around, is there a market for shifting furniture or taking stuff to the dump for people.