Driving your career: A guide to the jobs you can do from your car

Driving your career: A guide to the jobs you can do from your car

If you’re thinking about changing careers, there are a number of business opportunities that you can undertake using your trusty vehicle. Most of us use our cars everyday – whether it’s for the work commute, dropping the kids off at school or a trip to the grocery shop – but not everyone uses their vehicle for leisure. For some of us, our vehicle represents our livelihood and is the key to our career success.

We’ve teamed up with Motorparks Grange, retailers of prestige vehicles such as the Jaguar F Pace, to take an in-depth look at some of the most popular careers you can run from your car.

Plumber

There is currently a shortage of tradesmen in the UK and plumbing is a business which you can easily run from your own van or car. You’ll require a particular set of skills and industry recognised qualifications, but once you have them under your belt, you can run the basis of your business from your vehicle – you’ll need your vehicle to get you from job to job.

According to Totaljobs, the average salary for a qualified plumber is around £31,787.

Painter and Decorator

We are nation that loves to update our homes with the latest interior trends, with the average Brit decorating their home around 36 times during their lifetime. As trends come and go each year, a painter and decorator is likely to always have work on with home improvement projects typically taking around 18 days to finish.

You’ll most likely need a larger vehicle, such as a van or 4×4 where the seats can be put down as you will need ladders and a pasting table if you are going to offer wallpaper services, in addition to your other tools and equipment.

In September 2017, there were around 925 painting vacancies, 1,902 jobs and the average salary was £26,000, with Hampshire noted as the highest paying area for a painter decorator.

Driving Instructor

During April and June 2017, there were 546,608 theory tests taken and 485,148 practical driving tests conducted, showing an increase of 7.6% respectively on the previous year, and a 49.2% pass rate. If the level of tests continues to show growth, it’s likely that driving instructors will continue to be needed to meet demand.

As of 30thJune 2017, there were 39,373 approved driving instructors across the UK. You’ll require qualifications to run a driving school from your vehicle, and especially for car driving lessons, your vehicle will require dual control modifications.

The average driving instructor can expect to earn an annual salary of around £42,500, according to Totaljobs.

Courier

Whether its letters, groceries or parcels, the delivery system is booming in the UK. In 2014, it was reported that parcel couriers had delivered and handled over 1.7 billion parcels domestically in the UK. In a recent report, it was estimated that DPD averages around 1.6 million parcel deliveries per week! Parcelforce average around 70 million per annum, Yodel 135 million per annum, Hermes 190 million per annum and Royal Mail a huge 826 million parcels per annum.

It is clear that there is a demand for more courier drivers, especially with the rise of next day and same day deliveries. With 87% of Brits reportedly either sent or received a parcel in the six months leading up to July 2017, a career as a courier is one that is likely to keep you very busy – and of course, you can run it from the comfort of your own vehicle, whether that’s a van, small car or 4×4.

A courier earns on average around £21,000, according to Totaljobs – and you can expect to work between 30-40 hours a week.

Uber Driver

The Uber service is now available across 83 countries and over 674 cities worldwide – and their demand continues to increase globally. This year, the service has acquired over 40 million active monthly users, and over 20 million rides in London alone since 2012, growth is expected to continue.

There are currently over 1.5 million Uber drivers worldwide to which 25,000 of those were registered to London alone. Whilst you will need to outlay some initial costs for a private hire licence and to ensure you vehicle is road worthy, alongside the appropriate insurance – the return could be worth it in the long run.

The average Uber driver can expect to earn around $364 a month, which is the equivalent to around £275. However, Uber claims the average driver can make around £15 an hour after its 20-25% service fee.

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