The same Transit on the same estate can be three different jobs. It might be an employed supermarket shift on a published hourly rate, a day rate from an Amazon delivery partner, or a self-employed owner-driver's round where every cost is the driver's own. Which of those you are doing decides what a van driver's salary in the UK actually means for you.
Employed van driver salary: £25,000 to £31,000
Full time and employed, a van driver earns roughly £25,000 to £31,000 a year. The law sets the bottom of that range. Since April 2026 the National Living Wage is £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over, £10.85 for 18 to 20 year olds and £8.00 for under 18s.[1] No employed van job can pay less than the band that applies to you, so a salary "average" below about £24,800 is either out of date or has self-employed figures mixed into it.
The supermarkets set the top, and they are unusual in publishing what they pay. At 37.5 hours a week, paid for all 52 weeks because holiday is paid, their rates and the rest of the employed market work out like this:
| Employer or role | Hourly rate | Full time a year |
|---|---|---|
| National Living Wage floor, 21 and over | £12.71 | about £24,800 |
| Asda home shopping | £13.10, or £14.35 inside the M25 (July 2026 pay award)[2] | about £25,500 to £28,000 |
| Sainsbury's | £14.73, or £16.04 in London (Sainsbury's careers site)[3] | about £28,700 to £31,300 |
| Tesco home delivery | £14.18, or £15.45 inside the M25[4] | about £27,700 to £30,100 |
| Employed multi-drop parcel rounds | £12.71 to about £15 | about £25,000 to £29,300 |
Our posts on Asda and Sainsbury's cover the shifts behind those rates. Across the wider market, Indeed's UK-wide van driver average is around £13.63 an hour, about £26,600 a year full time. Indeed builds that from the adverts it aggregates, so take it as a rough middle of the market.
Parcel rounds often run to a 40 hour week, which adds roughly £1,600 to £2,100 a year to each figure in the table. Overtime, weekend premiums and Christmas peak work add more, and for most employed drivers they are what moves pay from the bottom of the band towards the top.
Day rates on parcel routes
Amazon's delivery service partners, and many of the smaller firms that run routes for the big carriers, pay by the day. An Amazon delivery partner route is advertised at £145 to £180 for a nine to ten hour day, and Indeed's average for the role is about £151. Our Amazon delivery driver guide covers how those routes work, and the multi-drop delivery driver guide goes through the day on a parcel round.
Divide before you sign. £145 over ten hours is £14.50 an hour, and a route that runs long pulls it lower. Five days a week across 46 working weeks puts the range at about £33,000 to £41,000 a year gross, though how much of that is yours depends on the contract. Amazon's partners advertise their driver roles as employed, with paid holiday and a pension. Many of the smaller firms' day-rate routes are self-employed instead, and on those the firm pays no holiday and no pension contribution, and the day rate is revenue rather than a wage. Check too whether the van is provided or rented to you: a weekly van rental comes out of the day rate whether you work one day or five.
Self-employed and owner-driver earnings
The largest figures in van work are quoted for self-employed routes. Evri Premium routes advertise up to £1,200 a week, which Evri's own small print describes as six days at about £200 a day. DPD owner-drivers, who run their own van on a DPD route, are quoted £50,000 to £60,000 a year. DPD Connect, the flexible version on a car or small van, pays around £18 an hour on average according to DPD franchise job ads, and that is an average, not a guarantee. Our guide to the best delivery driver jobs compares Connect with the other platforms.
Those costs run higher on a van than on a car. Hire and reward insurance for a van alone is £1,200 to £4,000 a year, and then come fuel, servicing, tyres, the lease or loan repayments and a reserve for the tax bill. When an owner-driver mentions £55,000, that is turnover; their own income is what is left once all of those are paid.
If you run your own van, HMRC's simplified mileage rate for goods vehicles is 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles in the 2026/27 tax year and 25p after that.[5] It is a deduction against tax, not money paid to you, and it is worth claiming properly.
Why van driver pay varies
Who employs you
The supermarket fleets pay the most predictable money in the employed market and add a pension, holiday and staff discount. Parcel rounds pay closer to the floor and make up the difference with overtime.
London and the M25
Tesco and Asda both pay more inside the M25, and Sainsbury's in London. Over a full time year that London rate adds around £2,500. Away from London, two employers in the same town usually differ by more than one region differs from another.
Evenings, weekends and peak
Most employers that run these shifts pay a premium for them.
Licence category
A standard category B licence covers vans up to 3,500kg. Category C1 goes up to 7,500kg, which opens the larger box vans and is a step towards the lorry work in our HGV driver salary guide. Drivers who passed their car test before 1 January 1997 usually hold C1 already; anyone who passed later has to take a separate test.
Your driving record
Points on your licence cost money whichever way you work. Self-employed, they push up your insurance; employed, they make an application harder to land.
Van driving jobs outside delivery
Trades, removals, hire companies, wholesale and builders' merchants all employ van drivers too. They tend to pay at or a little above the employed delivery rates, often with more regular hours and fewer drops, but they rarely publish a single rate. Compare a specific advert with the supermarket figures in the table, which are the published benchmark for what an employer near you will pay a van driver.
Frequently asked questions
What is the average van driver salary in the UK?
Indeed, which aggregates job adverts, puts the UK average advertised rate around £13.63 an hour, about £26,600 a year full time. Most full time employed van jobs pay between £25,000 and £31,000 a year in 2026. The National Living Wage of £12.71 an hour over a 37.5 hour week sets the bottom, and the supermarket fleets inside the M25 and the better paid parcel rounds sit at the top.
Do van drivers get paid more in London?
Yes, if the employer publishes a London rate. Tesco quotes £14.18 an hour, rising to £15.45 inside the M25, and Asda £13.10, rising to £14.35. Across a full time year the difference is about £2,500. Self-employed rates depend more on how dense the route is than on the postcode.
How much does an Amazon delivery van driver earn?
Most Amazon delivery service partners pay by the day: adverts typically offer £145 to £180 for a nine to ten hour route, and Indeed's average for the role is around £151. Divide the day rate by the hours before you sign, because at the bottom of the range on the longest shift the hourly figure sits close to the National Living Wage.
Can I drive a 7.5 tonne van on a car licence?
Only if you passed your car test before 1 January 1997, which usually gives you category C1 on your licence. Anyone who passed after that date is limited to 3,500kg on a category B licence and needs to take the C1 test to drive anything heavier.
Is it better to be an employed or self-employed van driver?
If you need a predictable income, employed work is the safer choice: it has a legal pay floor, paid holiday and a pension. A self-employed route can show a bigger weekly figure, but that figure is revenue before van costs, insurance and tax, with no holiday pay and no minimum wage under a quiet week.
Employed or self-employed: choosing your van work
The contract type moves your real income more than any rate quoted above, so settle that before you compare adverts. A supermarket payslip and a £180 day rate only line up once van rental, insurance and holiday are counted on both sides. If you are weighing van work against other kinds of delivery, the delivery driver salary guide sets them side by side, and the van jobs hiring near you are in the form below.