My workplace is on a brink of shutting down after losing a very huge contract for car parts manufacturing..and once again planning to jump first out of the sinking boat. ..and after Googling for some jobs ..i bump into this city-link careers about self employed owner drivers..for someone who had work experience with this i would like to ask how this business works ? …planning to swap my car for a med size van in months time so i thought might come handy. Appreciate the replies. Cheers.

City Link, you’ll be popular.

Bit like pizza delivery isnt it- only person making money a pizza delivery is the man selling the pizza.

Do your suns very carefully or you may find your self working till late hours trying to cover the bills.

I know it’s easy from someone in work to tell someone not in work what to take and not take, but couriering would be one of the last things I’d take if I was stuck.

Agree deadly – but even at that i wouldnt be doing it owner driver!

Moneys money but only when it doesnt involve you spending your money to make money( unless your makin all the money associated with the risk)

but even at that i wouldnt be doing it owner driver!

Indeed +lots …meant to say that!

I looked at this a few years back when things were getting desperate at our end. mrs deadly being made redundant and things quiet for me. It seemed heavily weighted in favour of everybody except me making money out of it. It just spurred me on to sorting my own stuff out.

Couriering is one big race to the bottom at the moment. As an owner driver you’re powerless and ripe for shafting.

I’m sure I read (possibly on here) about someone who was an owner driver.
They had to do some astronomical number of drops and pickups before they even broke even.
It strikes me as an Increadably hard way to not make much money….

A mate offered me some days (to help him out). Basically you needed about 40 drops a day – just wasn’t worth it, by the time you’d accounted for costs etc.

Why dont city linky or any other company just provide you with a van and a load of parcels. pay your fuel repairs, sickness, and holiday cover,insurance, insurance against loses ,mobile phone calls, etc etc.

answer , because some unemployed chappiesd will think its a good idea to be a self employed courier,until the bills and long work hours stick in, also its cheaper for citylinky to pay you a pittance to drive for them, with non of the overheds

How much do the likes of City Link pay then? I take it they pay a drop rate?

As a transport manager I’m thinking of moving from agency drivers in hire vans that we provide, to sub contracted owner drivers. We regularly get poorly performing agency drivers and often they have very little respect for the vehicles – damage is too common and the repair costs are very high.

I was thinking of offering somewhere between £6-7 per drop with an average of 35 drops per day – I would have thought that was reasonable?

No its not reasonable.

By the time you take into account:
Business Rates:
Any Premises Rent:
Accountancy fees:
Vehicle Lease:
Road Tax:
Insurance:
Wages:
Vehicle Depreciation:
Vehicle running costs:
Administrative fees:

Its a no go… but easy to convince simebody desperate that it is..

there ought to be a law against it.. its a CON…

Sounds good. But then…
If your sick, injured, on holiday, stuck in traffic, getting van serviced, broken down, loading van, unloading van, etc.
Your not earning money.

I highly doubt many owner drivers are going to use an accountant, but their choice if they want to waste their money! I also don’t see where premises would be required assuming most owner drivers would base their vehicle at their home.

It costs our business £6.50 per drop with a full time employed driver including NI and pension costs! This cost also includes vehicle lease cost, fuel, tax and insurance.

I can’t see why £6.50ish per drop wouldn’t be a reasonable rate.

If your sick, injured, on holiday, stuck in traffic, getting van serviced, broken down, loading van, unloading van, etc.
Your not earning money

true, but some companies (dpd?) charge up to £150 PER DAY to arrange cover for you

uselesshippy – Member
Sounds good. But then…
If your sick, injured, on holiday, stuck in traffic, getting van serviced, broken down, loading van, unloading van, etc.
Your not earning money.

Same goes for any self employed person does it not?

Used to be a courier on bikes and in vans, this was 25 years ago and made lots of money, then the big boys moved in and it all went tits up, owner driver now is awful, multi drops is a miserable game. You will get the rubbish runs after the badged vehicles, after Christmas you will have sod all work after Christmas, the insurance will be really rich and wear and tear on the van will be extreme.

How much do the likes of City Link pay then? I take it they pay a drop rate?

£6.58 per hour for a standard driver in Newmarket. Varies depending in local weighting it seems.

…’I highly doubt many owner drivers are going to use an accountant’

If you run a business an do not use an accountant then your are either a)an accountant yourself, b)naive or c)stupid.

You lay yourself open to unreasonable attacks from HMRC (Personal Tax, Corporation Tax and VAT) with nobody to defend you.

and you might want to check out the courier owner driver forum

Thanks for the reply guys, really put things into perspective. Never realize im staring at a quicksand.

nitrambocg – Member
…’I highly doubt many owner drivers are going to use an accountant’

If you run a business an do not use an accountant then your are either a)an accountant yourself, b)naive or c)stupid.

You lay yourself open to unreasonable attacks from HMRC (Personal Tax, Corporation Tax and VAT) with nobody to defend you.

That’s as maybe – my statement still stands.

Parcel force guy delivered to me late one night .Self employed 5am until 10pm shifts or so he reckoned ,it was 8pm and he was still at it with loads in the van so no reason not to believe him.

As a transport manager I’m thinking of moving from agency drivers in hire vans that we provide, to sub contracted owner drivers. We regularly get poorly performing agency drivers and often they have very little respect for the vehicles – damage is too common and the repair costs are very high.

How often are you getting agency drivers in? If they’re under performing is it not smarter to employ drivers so that they are familiar with the job, the vehicles etc. When I was a driver the company owner reckoned it took about 8-12 months for an employee to start being properly useful rather than be an expensive liability; know the vehicles, know the routes, know the traffic, know all venues, know all the customers names, know all the mistakes other people have already made, know whats in all the cupboards and drawers in the office, know how the boss likes his tea. Not make the same dumb mistakes and not have to ask questions all the time (or not know when to ask a question)

If you’re using temps then you’ve just got different blokes making the same mistakes every day.

‘That’s as maybe – my statement still stands. ‘

Nice to see that you have that much concern for the circumstances of your future clients… Perhaps it is ‘none of your business’, a very easy stance to take, but is it not something to be ashamed of?

We use agency drivers quite frequently, but there’s no need to employ any more full time drivers. We average 15 trips per day and have 15 FTE’s to cover them. Agency are used to cover sickness, leave and workload increases.

The majority of our deliveries are to schools so we’re very quite at school holiday times, but very busy is some months such as July and September where we restrict leave. Our FTE count is right, but agency staff are a necessary evil as our deliveries are next day and must be fulfilled.

I’m also in the peculiar position of having to use only one agency where I can’t ask for drivers by name, so good agency guys can’t get repeat work from us – this is very frustrating, but using subcontracted drivers would circumvent the mandated agency.

nitrambocg – Member
‘That’s as maybe – my statement still stands. ‘

Nice to see that you have that much concern for the circumstances of your future clients… Perhaps it is ‘none of your business’, a very easy stance to take, but is it not something to be ashamed of?

No, I’m not ashamed of my view – I’m not here to advise people how to run their lives or their businesses.

Some people really do expect their shoes to be tied for them don’t they?!

…..an average of 35 drops per day…….

I tracked a parcel delivered to me the other day. My delivery was number 93 of 95.

Last time I did multi drop i had 43 drops to be done in a 7.5tonner around Hayes and West Drayton, absolute nightmare. Went back with about 9 on the truck was asked if I expected to be paid.

I was thinking of offering somewhere between £6-7 per drop with an average of 35 drops per day – I would

You’ll get your hand bitten off at that rate.

you must be mad if you think drivers get £6-£7 per drop !!!!!!!!!!!!!

and 40 drops a day !!!!!!!

my local guy self employed often does 100-150 drops on a busy day

I reckon more like £1.50 per drop ?

sending courier pack bags for £4.95 plus vat – they arent gonna pay the driver £7 to deliver it

When i had a contract with royal mail to deliver stuff any weight from a pound to 50 pound weight, it was £2.65 per parcel, so how the courier is now going to get 6 to 7 quid per drop is not a real world figure.

Thats why some courier companies employ housewifes, and the under employed to deliver their parcels by car.

Er, it would be me setting the rate. Pretty sure I could set what I see fit? Our deliveries are of high enough value to warrent a decent delivery cost.

you must be mad if you think drivers get £6-£7 per drop !!!!!!!!!!!!!

and 40 drops a day !!!!!!!

my local guy self employed often does 100-150 drops on a busy day

I reckon more like £1.50 per drop ?

sending courier pack bags for £4.95 plus vat – they arent gonna pay the driver £7 to deliver it

it depends on your the patch the driver is covering – when you book a parcel delivery its not considered in the price whether its going to an urban centre or nowheresville. When Mr City Link delivers a parcel to me he’ll have driven for an hour from the depot to reach me and there’ll be precious few other deliveries on his route, certainly little to nothing in the last 20 miles – so that one delivery is about 10% to 20% of his working day

So if you’re route is all urban then 100 drops is quite doable – city centres and commercial districts will have multiple packages to one address or at least in one street, if its not then the quantity thats viable in a day is much lower. For the customer dense areas subsidise the rural ones. Where self employed / owner drivers can get humped is a per-delivery rate doesn’t take into account how many of those deliveries are available to you (it might be viable to do 100 in a day but what if only 5 need delivering that day) and a flat rate doesn’t take into account the variable cost of delivery and the risk is the employer will give all the low hanging fruit to their own drivers (who are on a flat day rate no matter how many they deliver) and uneconomic outliers to the owner/drivers.

When I drove, my patch that I covered (as in only I covered) was Scotland, the North of England and occasionally Ireland so 5 drops a day was good going and it would typically be a 600 mile round trip – but then we worked in a very specialist field and were able to charge to clients to suit.

I suspect it will be a tough living. All of the major courier companies are competing extremely hard and struggling to make any money.