Does anyone know if its hard to get work as an owner driver (large van)in the UK?
Answers:
It is actually very easy to do that. Just make sure that you have got all the relevant insurance, you will need traders insurance, goods in transit insurance( for a transit sized van i would go for goods upto £25000) and possibly public liability insurance ( upto £2 million).
Then go on yell.com or look through your local phone book and find all the courier companies in your area, introduce yourself to them with a letter, tell them what van you have got, that you have got all of the relevant insurances and that you will be incontact with them in a few days to see if they are intrested in using your services.
once you have phoned them some of them will just tell you that they are not intrested but some of them will want to meet you and check your insurance documents and to see your van( they will want to see it because you will be representing there company so they do not want somebody in a really old scabby van turning up to one of their customers).
you are then ready to work for them, they will probably give you some of their delivery notes and show you how to fill them out. They will phone you when they have a job that they need covering.
to do this you may need to send out 40 letters and you will probably only get work out of 3 or 4 of these but that is all you need. Just make sure you are reliable! You can charge 85pence per mile for large van work and 65pence per mile if the consignment can fit into a small van. You will need to be available to work 24 hours a day seven days a week. for collections out of office hours work (7am-7pm in this industry) you will be able to charge about £1 per mile for large van work and 85 pence per mile for small van work. You only charge from collection to delivery points. You would invoice the courier company once a week with any work they have given you and you can expect to wait upto 30 days for payment.
When you get a job for example yo collect from Reading and have o deliver to Norwich, before you leave go onto yell.com and print off all of the listings for couriers in Norwich, then when you are abou 30 mins away from your drop phone all of them and tell them what you are doing and where you will be returning to and if they have got any packages going in that direction you will take them for 40 pence per mile, this covers your fuel costs coming home= more profit.
Dont forget to make sure that you are regestered with the tax office as a self employed person and you will be responsable for paying you own tax. Keep all of your business reciepts (diesel) as these can cut down the amount of tax you will pay.
Then just make sure that you have got a good mobile phone, a good bluetooth head set, a good sat nav system, a street map of london( you will also need the london map, trust me) and an atlas.
Also check out www.courierexchange.co.uk and www.loadup.co.uk
If you are good, fast and reliable you can expect to earn somewhere between £25k- £30k per year after business expences but before tax.
Hope that helps.
Good luck.
I will say there are at least three families that have moved to Winnipeg, Canada recently for driving truck jobs. They say opportunities are better there.
there are loads of work for owner drivers, you just need to check the papers.
no its impossible i'd give up on the idea immeadiatly its a bad idea trust me
ps man with a large van for hire owner driver reasonable rates
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