r/Glasgow Tools

Title
Author	Torran_Toi
Comment	On your specific questions... Who pays me? Short answer is the passenger does. How it works is you register as self employed, you take the money from customers each time you take them somewhere, and then you pay the firms for access to their bookings. The company acts more like a middle man booking agent / aggregator. So, you pay the company a rental to access their system (around £150 per week these days) or in case of Uber a deduction of 25% on every job. Then all the money you bring in from customers goes to you. The taxi companies get what you pay them as a driver, the driver gets the fares. You are also liable for paying tax and NI. Who sets my hours? You do. You are self employed, so it's entirely up to you when and where to work or not. You do need to be out full time hours to make it work, but the flexibility is good in so far far as you get to pick and choose your start and finish times. Taxi Vs private. Two entirely different trades and require different licences. Taxis can be rank up and take random hires off the street. Private hire must always be pre-booked in some fashion. Renting cars. Cars are available from around £170 per week going up to £250 per week for people carriers and exec models. Someone below said it works out better if you own the car. Only very marginally. That per week rental includes almost all your costs like vehicle licence, insurance, excise duty, servicing, MOTs and ALL repairs. If you own a car then all those costs are on you. I rented for years while my dad has always owned. When you stack or figures next to each other at year end, they are generally only ever a few hundred quid apart (which is eye opening as I used to think the car rental guys made a fortune, but they don't unless they have decent sized fleets). Another aspect is the councils plate cap. They are not issuing new vehicle licences until the numbers drop below the current cap. This means you won't get your own vehicle plated anytime soon. I imagine when it opens back up that the waiting list is massive and the cap will kick back in almost instantly. Your only option really is to rent. Part time. I did a break down in another part last week. You need to be pulling in around £500 per week to break even before you start making wages (a bit less with Uber... Probably around £300). It's not really feasible to do the job part time. It's kind of all in or nothing. Currently it's taking around a year to get into the trade. Council are taking around a year to process applications (this will improve post covid but not by much... Pre covid it was 6 to 9 months.) Before you apply you need to sit and pass the new SVQ certification. This course costs £400, but you can hand that by making use of £200 ITA. It's 9 assessments in a variety of topics and including 1 practical (wheelchair handling and loading). Someone said below that this is not a job, it's a lifestyle. A million per cent agree with that. You do end up sort of working every waking hour to make it worthwhile financially. End up most of your mates will be other drivers because it's the only social life you can get (between all the hours, plus taxi drivers work when everybody else is at play. Football on.. you will be working. Gigs and events.. Working.. Nightlife and pubs.. Working.) ... It's definitely a way of life more than a job. Is it worth it? Not anymore. Fares are terribly to low. Joe public (sorry guys) want it dirt cheap. But it's too cheap. We are getting around £1.50 per mile (ish) just now... It was around £1 a mile 20 years ago! So, factor in the high cost of living, the high cost of motoring, the fact that with every gate increase comes with rent increases, rate of inflation, etc etc.... Drivers have not had a pay rise in real terms for over 2 decades. We need to see fares at £2 per mile and minimum fare set at a fiver asap. Public don't want to pay it though. Funny thing is, if Uber would set the rates like that then they could largely dump the price gouge that is surge and then everybody wins. Anyway I'm off point. To answer your question, is this something to do part time? No. You need to decide you want to commit to it as a career change then go for it. Alternatives. As said courier work. Sign up for as many as you can. Uber Eats, Just Eat, Deliveroo, Amazon Flex. Get on all those systems. Then you can do them all as part time as you like and make a decent side income.
Reddit Link	https://www.reddit.com/r/glasgow/comments/qc069b/is_now_a_good_time_to_get_a_taxi_license/hhg1t3w/
Created	Thu 21st Oct 2021 3:41am
Status	normal ()

On your specific questions...

Who pays me? Short answer is the passenger does. How it works is you register as self employed, you take the money from customers each time you take them somewhere, and then you pay the firms for access to their bookings. The company acts more like a middle man booking agent / aggregator. So, you pay the company a rental to access their system (around £150 per week these days) or in case of Uber a deduction of 25% on every job. Then all the money you bring in from customers goes to you. The taxi companies get what you pay them as a driver, the driver gets the fares. You are also liable for paying tax and NI.

Who sets my hours? You do. You are self employed, so it's entirely up to you when and where to work or not. You do need to be out full time hours to make it work, but the flexibility is good in so far far as you get to pick and choose your start and finish times.

Taxi Vs private. Two entirely different trades and require different licences. Taxis can be rank up and take random hires off the street. Private hire must always be pre-booked in some fashion.

Renting cars. Cars are available from around £170 per week going up to £250 per week for people carriers and exec models. Someone below said it works out better if you own the car. Only very marginally. That per week rental includes almost all your costs like vehicle licence, insurance, excise duty, servicing, MOTs and ALL repairs. If you own a car then all those costs are on you. I rented for years while my dad has always owned. When you stack or figures next to each other at year end, they are generally only ever a few hundred quid apart (which is eye opening as I used to think the car rental guys made a fortune, but they don't unless they have decent sized fleets).

Another aspect is the councils plate cap. They are not issuing new vehicle licences until the numbers drop below the current cap. This means you won't get your own vehicle plated anytime soon. I imagine when it opens back up that the waiting list is massive and the cap will kick back in almost instantly. Your only option really is to rent.

Part time. I did a break down in another part last week. You need to be pulling in around £500 per week to break even before you start making wages (a bit less with Uber... Probably around £300). It's not really feasible to do the job part time. It's kind of all in or nothing.

Currently it's taking around a year to get into the trade. Council are taking around a year to process applications (this will improve post covid but not by much... Pre covid it was 6 to 9 months.) Before you apply you need to sit and pass the new SVQ certification. This course costs £400, but you can hand that by making use of £200 ITA. It's 9 assessments in a variety of topics and including 1 practical (wheelchair handling and loading).

Someone said below that this is not a job, it's a lifestyle. A million per cent agree with that. You do end up sort of working every waking hour to make it worthwhile financially. End up most of your mates will be other drivers because it's the only social life you can get (between all the hours, plus taxi drivers work when everybody else is at play. Football on.. you will be working. Gigs and events.. Working.. Nightlife and pubs.. Working.) ... It's definitely a way of life more than a job.

Is it worth it? Not anymore. Fares are terribly to low. Joe public (sorry guys) want it dirt cheap. But it's too cheap. We are getting around £1.50 per mile (ish) just now... It was around £1 a mile 20 years ago! So, factor in the high cost of living, the high cost of motoring, the fact that with every gate increase comes with rent increases, rate of inflation, etc etc.... Drivers have not had a pay rise in real terms for over 2 decades. We need to see fares at £2 per mile and minimum fare set at a fiver asap. Public don't want to pay it though. Funny thing is, if Uber would set the rates like that then they could largely dump the price gouge that is surge and then everybody wins. Anyway I'm off point.

To answer your question, is this something to do part time? No. You need to decide you want to commit to it as a career change then go for it.

Alternatives. As said courier work. Sign up for as many as you can. Uber Eats, Just Eat, Deliveroo, Amazon Flex. Get on all those systems. Then you can do them all as part time as you like and make a decent side income.