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I have a question about Taxi Drivers earnings, and been fair I’m totally confused, and hope some of you can help. I have spoken to numerous taxi drivers in my life, both private hire and hackney drivers, and have had such mixed responses from people about earnings, costs, repairs (ect) thats its left me not knowing what to believe.

Answer A:
Most taxi drivers I have spoke to (when asked about their job or pay) seem to get very negative rather quickly, and seem to put you off the idea totally, saying things like, it costs to much to run a taxi, the pay is below minimum wage, your always paying for repairs, insurance, radios ect, and by the time you have done you come out with nothing, get no holiday or sick pay, and so on.

Answer B: On the other hand some taxi drivers are the opposite and over the years have spoke to a few people I know at work who drive taxis, and they tell me that after your costs its easy to earn £500 a week or even more. Some web sites talk about London Taxi drivers taking home £2000 or £3000 per week, in fact one of my friends said he works thurs, fri, and sat and takes out around £500 after costs in three long days.

So my question is, who is telling the truth?

I am aware that there are a lot of costs, but at the same time there is a potenatial to earn a lot, so which one is actually correct for an average UK city? Been fair its not money that attracts me to taxi driving, its more the freedom to be your own boss as I currently work in a office environment and am sick of bosses / middle management making our lives hard because they have a bad day, but at the same time there is no point been a taxi driver if things are as bad as some taxi drivers make out, and defiantly dont want to be earning under min wage.
One of my friends who has just passed his taxi badge suggests that half of the things people say about taxi driving is just to put you off, so there is one less driver on the road, and he explained that if there is say 3000 taxi drivers in a city, then maybe 1/3 or 1/2 of them are out driving at any one time, as some are on holiday, others asleep, sick, or only work nights, days, weekends ect, and he seems to recon there is enough work around, and that potential earnings are easy £500 a week after running costs, he even said that some drivers he knows will work really hard for 6 or 8 months and then have the rest of the year off, or on holiday because they earn enough in 6 / 8 months hard graft and then long holidays ect.

Has left me totally confused on how much a UK taxi driver can earn in a week? Or month?

I understand there are things that alter this, how hard you work, luck, skill, knowing your city and business, obviously repairs, running costs ect..... Well I’m willing to work hard, am no stranger to 12, and 14 hour shifts, and would be willing to put in the work and hours, but am still lost on what id earn and expect to take home? It seems one driver will fight tooth and nail to put you off, and the next is saying they earn over £500 in three long days a week, so who is right? Lol


Thanks for your help with this

Regards

In some areas the rentals for the cars well exceed £250 for a weekly rental, this means with fuel added on top a driver in some areas will have to take in excess of £350 before he earns anything for himself.

I work on % i pay nothing for the car no fuel repairs ect.... and i get 40% of my total takings so 1k a week = 400quid for me

Posted By dannyg on 17/06/2010 11:15 PM
I work on % i pay nothing for the car no fuel repairs ect.... and i get 40% of my total takings so 1k a week = 400quid for me

IMO is the best way to go.

A lot of it depends on where you are. Obviously some cities have different make-ups, councils charge their own badging costs, etc.

Although generally speaking, if you're prepared to put in the work, you can make a decent amount of money. The problem is the startup costs are really high, and when you start your profit margins are thin.

Some drivers get ripped off, some get good deals on their costs - so each driver will say a different thing.
For example, I'd lean towards the lower-than-minimum-wage side. As a young driver my insurance is rather steep at £300/month (still a good deal compared to other quotes I've seen), with a £750 excess. Other drivers are paying in the region of £50-£100 per month.
Also, my car is leased at £130 per week and is constantly breaking. With my town being really spread out over steep hills, I'm chewing through £30 of fuel per day.

If you can get a decent insurance quote, find a lease company who won't rip you off, and put in at least 40 hours per week - you'll be doing alright.

Of course, as you get more experienced, you can get a taste for where the more higher-quality fares are going to be, and how to work more efficiently.

Work out what the average fare is where you are (say, a fiver), then from that work out how many you'd need to fit into your ideal shift length, and you'll get your ideal fares-per-hour. Ask around to see if the work is that busy.

For myself, my insurance and lease works out at something like £30 per day, plus the £30 in fuel, and I pay 15% commission. I consider 20 calls per day to be ideal, so am taking about £90-£100 per day, leaving about £30 for myself.

I think things are too variable to make any hard and fast rules.

Deregulation has played a major role in killing earnings in the taxi trade so unless you are in with a good company or have a niche market then you really are likely to be hitting the minimum pay levels but without the extras that comes from being employed such as sick pay and holiday pay. There's a reason why taxi companies only take on self employed drivers rather than employing them directly. If companies could guarantee a certain amount of work then they would employ people.

the other thing that has had a big effect on earnings is 24 hour drinking. Before then at 2.00am there would be a mad dash to make money and by 4.00am everything would be quiet and you could go home. Now though people come out in dribs and drabs and you have to work till 6.00am or later to get the same amount of earnings which brings your hourly rate down a lot. and then you have to put up with all the abuse from drunks. If someone is sick in your car you could be off the road for an hour while you clean it up which again costs you money.

My suggestion is to keep away from the public aspect of taxiing and look for your own niche market in the commercial sector - maybe look at joining one of the chauffeurs associations and going down the private hire route rather than hackney carriage route.

Kevin