Driving For a Living in London

Career Advice by Eve Taylor

Although there are countless office jobs in London, not everyone likes the thought of being stuck behind a desk for 8 hours a day. If driving is something that you enjoy then below are some of the main types of driving jobs you can do in London.

Types of driving jobs

  • Taxi driver – Black cabs are everywhere in London. If you want to work as a private hire taxi driver then you’ll need to get a private hire licence and pass the Knowledge test. You’ll also need to get A good thing about working as a taxi driver in London in comparison to a lot of other cities is that there are a lot of dedicated taxi lanes.
  • Courier – Another type of driving work you can get in London is working as a courier – either for a major courier firm or as a freelancer. Couriers are more in demand now than ever thanks to the explosion of online shopping. In order to be successful as a courier you will need to work long hours as it’s not a particularly well paid job in most cases.
  • Food delivery – Food delivery is big business in London so you also have the option of working as a food delivery driver. This job is actually very similar to being a courier in that you’ll probably need to work long/anti-social hours to make it worth it. An advantage of doing food delivery of working as a courier is that you don’t have to carry heavy parcels around.

Things you need to be prepared for

Image result for london traffic

  • Stressful driving conditions – It almost goes without saying but in order to work any kind of driving job in London you’re going to have to be prepared to work in stressful driving conditions. London is notorious for its traffic, with countless cars, buses, taxis, vans etc. clogging up the roads. You also have cyclists and couriers on mopeds to worry about.
  • Getting your own insurance – Although some companies will have their own vehicles with insurance, in most cases you’ll need to get your own cover when working as a driver in London. For example if you work as a minibus taxi driver then you’ll need to get a private hire minibus insurance policy from a site like Insure Minibus.