“My income is more as a cleaner than I do from serving as a meal courier rider,” notes Marina, a Brazilian woman who manages two jobs to sustain her teenage daughters.
It’s a “nonsense, awful job”, says Adam, from Sudan, who mixes riding for a delivery platform with working towards a law degree. “During a profitable shift I can earn £50 or £60, despite the fact that it’s really hard doing deliveries using a pedal bike.”
“As humans we are invisible to the people we deliver to,” says Mohammed, a Syrian refugee who also works as a delivery rider. “People don’t reflect on our hardships and our dreams. I’ve heard people in this country talk about second-class citizens; delivery riders are actually bottom-tier citizens.”
Marina, Adam and Mohammed are just a few of the hundreds of thousands food delivery riders in the UK, primarily working for the leading players. Most are foreign nationals, according to the riders themselves.
The government has been clamping down on people working without authorization in the food delivery industry, but those interviewed in London, Liverpool and Manchester say they are working legally in challenging, low-paid conditions that many local citizens would find unacceptable.
“I have worked for all of them over the past few years,” says Marina. “At different times one company has paid a bit more or a bit less than the others, but today in terms of pay and working conditions they’re all pretty much the same.”
Lady Riders Experience Further Dangers
Men dominate this work but Marina is one of about 800 members of a UK WhatsApp group for female riders from Brazil. Here they share advice on how to deal with hazards such as fatigue, meager income and accidents and injuries, as well as harassment from male customers.
“At times men greet us to women riders naked or in their underwear,” says Marina. “One man I delivered food to tried to pull me inside his house. Another hit me across the face in the street. Doing this job makes you feel that you are not a person, just a meal distribution mechanism.”
“Everyone assumes all riders are working illegally, which is not the case,” adds Rayan, from Pakistan. “We are vulnerable to being assaulted – I’ve been attacked twice by teenagers who were just doing it for fun. We are invisible and unprotected at the same time.”
Digital Loneliness
None of the riders interviewed said they had ever met a boss from any of the platforms in person. All said their only communication was with the app, which presents them deliveries that are available and the compensation they will be paid – sometimes only about £3.
“We are a very present-day kind of servant,” says Mohammed. “The taskmaster is the app that sends us our orders.”
All the riders said that they despise delivery work, but have few alternatives if they want to earn money within the law. Residency and immigration conditions mean that many do not have the permission to do jobs defined as “expert” by the government.
When it’s really cold I have to defrost my legs with a hair dryer
Health Hardships
Warm days are the worst for delivery riders, as would-be customers are more likely to venture outside and pick up their own food. Cycling along dark streets, slippery with rain and with reduced visibility, increases the chance of accidents. But at least they will be making money.
Rayan, an English degree holder who dreams of becoming a lecturer of English literature and writing novels, says the only way he can survive is by working for as many hours as he can bear without taking a break.
“Sometimes I am so chilled I want to go home and warm up. When it’s really freezing I have to warm up my legs with a blow dryer. The cold of the wind and rain changes my skin white. The idea of going out on the road again after warming up is too much to bear.”
Some days he works in four pairs of socks, several sets of trousers and layers of outerwear.
“I still hope of becoming an English professor one day but things don’t always turn out the way you want them to. I came here thinking I had a job secured with a sponsor but I was deceived. There was no sponsor, so I am doing deliveries, working lengthy days or for as long as I have the energy.”
Monetary Pressure
When he started to work as a delivery rider he used to borrow books from the library to read while he was expecting orders to come through. “My favourite author is Dostoevsky, who I call the ‘magician of writing’. I particularly love The Idiot, but I don’t read any more because I’m too fatigued. This work has just depleted everything out of me.”
Rayan says that riders on cycles can earn about £300 per week, while those on motorcycles can earn about £450, but the second group have to pay protection and gas costs. “I don’t earn enough to support my wife and child, so I have had to obtain a loan just to survive.”
The feeling among riders that they have been “erased” as humans from the company structure comes up frequently. They see themselves as simply a instrument joining three dots – the delivery company, the shops or eateries where they collect the orders, and the customers who receive the food.
“All we riders can concentrate on is money and how to persevere in order to earn enough to survive,” says Rayan.
Long-Term Workers
Bruno, from Brazil, describes himself as a “old-timer” because he has been doing delivery work for six years.
“Many people can’t speak English, and this is a job they can do without needing to speak the language,” he says. “I continue doing it because I have a son I need to deliver and retrieve from school, and I need work that has adaptability.”
A team of researchers at Birmingham University recently published research about the exploitation of migrants doing delivery and domestic work.
Food delivery platforms have found a control that allows them to turn back the clock on workers’ rights
“The UK food delivery sector has become a ‘proving ground’ for a new model of migration governance,” the researcher says. This work is advertised as “adaptable” and “liberating”, but in reality “it combines work automatisation, digital surveillance and immigration enforcement.”
Working conditions have become harsher since March, he says, when residency checks increased as part of a crackdown on illegal working.
“These changes have effectively integrated the hostile environment into platform work. This is a system where migrant workers are accepted only as long as they remain quiet, adaptable and unseen. It’s time for a new approach that puts workers’ self-respect and rights at the centre.”
Legal Status
While the supreme court ruled in 2021 that certain delivery drivers were “workers” rather than freelancers, granting them to certain fundamental rights, the same court declared in 2023 that delivery riders are self-employed due to a “replacement provision”, a legal provision allowing them to send someone else to work in their place.
Unions continue to campaign for more rights for this group of workers. There is a non-mandatory agreement with one major platform, for example, that is meant to guarantee riders are paid at least the legal minimum plus costs for the time they are on an order. However, if they are only sent one or two orders in an hour they are improbable to earn the hourly national minimum wage.
“Food delivery platforms have found in the freelance market a control that allows them to turn back the clock on workers’ rights,” says a union representative. “The result is a labor force afflicted with monetary, health and emotional struggles. With such low pay, riders are forced to take dangerous risks on the road to cut delivery times. With no time off payment, they get no time to rest. And with no hourly wage they are kept in constant concern about whether or not they will be able to pay their bills that week.”
Company Statement
The delivery platforms dispute this description. “The vast majority of riders tell us they are content working with us,” a spokesperson for one platform says. “We are always looking at ways to enhance the quality of freelance work. We were the first major delivery platform to endorse unionization and voluntarily partner with a union. Earlier this year we increased riders’ minimum hourly earnings assurance and have introduced several valuable security measures, such as free insurance, health cover and economic support when riders become new parents.”
“The safety and welfare of everyone who uses our platform is our primary focus,” says another platform, “and there are a number of {s
