Investigative Report · April 2026 · London Drivers Voice
In a single working week, a London PHV driver’s passengers paid £1,599.45 in fares. The driver’s gross earnings from Uber were £1,078.59. After Congestion Charge (£100), fuel (£100), and car rental (£250), actual take-home fell to approximately £628.
Across 70 hours of driving, seven days a week, that is £8.97 per hour — below the National Minimum Wage. Out of £1,599.45 paid by passengers, the driver took home £628. Every other party took their cut first, in full, without negotiation. The driver received what was left.
The Four-Way Squeeze
London PHV drivers face costs pressing in from four directions simultaneously. Each takes its share before the driver sees a penny of what remains.
£360.76 from £1,599.45 of fares. Uber sets the fare, contracts with the passenger, and pays the driver what it decides. The 23% is the gap between those two figures.
£313.17 in a single week. New from January 2026. The Tour Operators’ Margin Scheme was abolished. London drivers got no equivalent protection to the rest of England.
In one working week — more than Uber itself kept. Every London airport raised charges in 2025 or 2026. None are regulated. All are rising. See Part 1 for the full breakdown.
Five days in central London = £90/week, £4,680/year. EV drivers — who switched on the basis of a full exemption — now pay £13.50/day. The exemption was removed after the investment was made.
The Fare Ceiling Nobody Talks About
There is a ceiling on what a passenger will pay before they choose a train, a bus, or a different mode of transport entirely. London has alternatives. A PHV fare that feels too expensive means the passenger goes elsewhere. Demand is elastic. Push the price too high and the rides disappear.
Within that ceiling, every other party takes their fixed cut first — regardless of whether the driver earned enough to cover their costs. The driver is not a fixed cost in this system. The driver is the residual. Everyone else’s share is protected. The driver’s share is whatever remains.
More cost going out, same fare coming in, less left for the driver. Every new charge, every annual increase, every unregulated hike is a direct cut to driver take-home pay. Not a cost shared across the system. A cost landed entirely on the one party in the chain with no power to refuse it.
What Happens to Every £1 Paid by a Passenger
“Everyone else’s share is protected. The driver’s share is whatever remains after every other claim has been satisfied.”
Uber Is Not the Villain Here
This needs to be said clearly, because it is true.
Uber’s 23% take reflects a genuine service. The platform connects drivers to passengers, handles payment, manages the app, advertises to riders, negotiates designated pickup points at airports, and provides the infrastructure that makes the whole system work. That has a cost and a value. The 23% is not the problem.
The problem is everything else — the unregulated, unaccountable external costs that keep rising while the fare ceiling stays fixed and the driver absorbs every penny of the difference.
The Hours This Requires
A supermarket cashier working the same 70 hours would take home £854.70. This driver takes home £628 — with no sick pay, no employer pension, and no paid holidays beyond the statutory minimum Uber provides under legal compulsion.
At £628 net from a seven-day week, there is no margin for a day off. Fixed costs do not pause when the driver does. Day six and day seven are not optional. They are how the bills get paid.
“In this arrangement, everyone wins except the driver. The airports collect more every year. Uber’s revenue grows. HMRC receives a new stream of VAT. TfL collects the Congestion Charge. The driver gets what is left — and what is left keeps getting smaller.”
What Needs to Change
- Airport charges must be regulated. Annual increases of 43% with no ceiling, no accountability and no appeals process are not a market — they are extraction. A regulator with the power to set a cap is the minimum required.
- VAT relief must be extended to London. The rest of England was given a contractual restructuring that London drivers were denied due to TfL licensing rules. A temporary reduced VAT rate for London PHV operators — funded from the government’s own fuel windfall receipts — would restore the parity removed in January 2026.
- The EV Congestion Charge exemption must be restored. Drivers were asked to make a significant financial commitment on the basis of a policy. That policy was reversed. The commitment cannot be reversed. The exemption should be reinstated for licensed PHV vehicles.
London has 110,000 licensed PHV drivers. They keep this city moving at 3am, on bank holidays, when tubes fail and buses stop. The figures in these two articles are not a complaint. They are a record of what is actually happening to their earnings — in the platform’s own words, from the platform’s own system.
Read Part 1: A full breakdown of every London airport’s drop-off, pick-up and waiting charges — with the data that started this investigation.
Are you a London PHV driver? We want to hear what your working week actually leaves in your pocket. Contact us — published anonymously with your permission only.
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