Do Self-employed Parcel Delivery make much?

[lscott 10]

Hiya

 

Just been made redundant last week so i'm looking for a quick career change.

 

Currently work as a chef (for the past 8 years) and i'm looking into doing parcel delivery, self employed.

 

Am just wondering if theres any one on here who can give me the know-how about this type of job.

 

I'm used to long hours and working weekends, I usually rack up 60 - 65 hours per week. And i was thinking of selling my car, buying a van and doing delivery driving.

 

Anyone in this industry?

 

Thanks for reading

 

Regards Lukescotty

[V.Rossi 10]

Hiya

 

Just been made redundant last week so i'm looking for a quick career change.

 

Currently work as a chef (for the past 8 years) and i'm looking into doing parcel delivery, self employed.

 

Am just wondering if theres any one on here who can give me the know-how about this type of job.

 

I'm used to long hours and working weekends, I usually rack up 60 - 65 hours per week. And i was thinking of selling my car, buying a van and doing delivery driving.

 

Anyone in this industry?

 

Thanks for reading

 

Regards Lukescotty

 

Not sure what the income is like but if you know of any jobs going I would appreciate a nod.

[Guest]

I get deliveries of stock most days and the drivers cant stop long as they generally have at least 100 drops per day although sometimes 15 are for the same place.

 

The services do seem to be struggling with demand so I can see this opening up to new drivers. I would look for recognised parcel carriers first Parcelforce, UPS, DPD, Fedex. I am not sure if Fastways is still operating as they were under resourced.

[jellytot 10]

My mate does that job, self employed and I remember when he first started doing it he bought an average sized van but later had to sell it and get one of those big transit vans and wished he'd got the bigger one at first because to make it pay you've got to fit loadsa parcels in. He works Mon-Fri flat out, never stops as he's got that many parcels to drop off in a day, however he gets £400-£600 per week but don't forget you've got to pay your own tax out of that, diesel, insurance etc. The more parcels you drop, the more money you make of course. The insurance is not ordinary insurance, it cost more to insure for business purposes, but you do recoup it eventually with earning good money.

[Nebby 10]

Can get £25 an hour if u deliver a parcel from Sheffield to London. Just make sure you're VERY well known so people know who to call for an emergency

[daveyboy123 10]

I don't know whether this helps but I believe that the likes of Hermes offer employment on a self employed courier basis. They are a National company so they are likely to have opportunities in the Sheffield area. The man who delivers our next stuff and the catalog works for them and I asked him not long ago how much he got paid per parcel. It was I believe at the time around 50 pence. However that may not sound much but they tend to give you small areas so other than going to the depot to pick the stuff up you should still make a reasonable profit after petrol, insurance etc etc. If you make 50 parcel deliveries a day thats £25.00 after costs say £20.00. During busy periods he told me that he can be delivering up to 150 parcels a day. You would have to pay your own tax but you have an allowance of £7500 per year so there wouldn't really be much tax if any. Anyway the link to hermes website is here if it is of help http://www.hermes-europe.co.uk/recruitment.html

[Shogun 10]

You can make about £180 a day but you have to work like mad delivering up to 150 parcels a day I have 3 vans at UK Mail at the moment I did it for a few months myself but it was a killer its a job for a young lad the lads who work for me don't seem to last long the pressure can be a bit intense and it is even madder at Christmas.

[RutlandFlyer 10]

I looked into this a while back. Basically there's money to be made, but like others have said you work bloody hard for it and although it sounds like you get paid loads per day, diesel and van maintenance eat up a lot of that. You can earn a decent wage, but you'll really know you've earned it. You also need to keep on top of the books, which is harder than a lot of people think.

 

A word of warning: there are a lot of expensive 'guide books' for being a self-employed courier out there and although one or two of them are good, a lot are scams. Make sure you read a lot of reviews before committing to one.