Following my 5 factors of an awesome side hustle: how does Uber Eats stack up? Is it worth considering doing a bit of Uber Eats on the side to achieve financial independence in the UK?
How does Uber Eats work?
Uber Eats is an app that pays you weekly for delivering fast food to people’s homes or workplaces. You sign up via the smartphone app and their website, then submit a few documents, then you’re good to go.
Drivers can deliver by bicycle, car, motorcycle or moped. Rates of payment vary, as do requirements for registration. For example, if you’re using a motor vehicle you need to submit your insurance details, but you get paid less on a bicycle per delivery.
Signing up for Uber Eats
Signing up is actually the most difficult thing. The system doesn’t always work as advertised and I’m not the first driver to have problems getting the app to register my documents. There is also a criminal record check, which involves filling out a form and heading down to a post office to use the verified identity service.
I think it took my about 6 weeks to get registered, which anecdotally I understand to be about average.
You’ll also need your own thermal insulation bag. I bought an Uber backpack from their store, but I’ve since learned that any much cheaper bag would have been equally as good, and probably less than half of the price.
Uber Eats payment scheme
The bit you really want to know: how does this pay?
Well, it’s variable. Helpfully, your area might be different to mine. However, I’ve lovingly stolen this payment chart from the Uber Eats website. Where it says “service fee” – that’s the cut that Uber takes from you.
Confusingly, this isn’t the end of the tale. Uber releases bonus multipliers to get more drivers in an area on certain times, usually Friday nights and Sundays or Bank Holiday lunchtimes.
How have I used Uber Eats?
I used Uber Eats to pay me to keep fit, so I went everywhere by bicycle. I’ve done this for about a year and it has helped me progress towards my financial independence goal while doing some exercise that I would want to be doing anyway. Obviously, as a result of being on a bicycle, seasons really did affect my performance.
Yeah, but how much does Uber Eats pay in the UK?
The best money I earned was about £50 in 3 hours on a bank holiday lunchtime. My average was £15-25 an outing and to be honest I usually gave up after two hours.
Weekdays aren’t necessarily dead for earnings opportunities but they have seemed to be less predictable. If it’s overcast or raining, usually there’s money to be made, whatever the day. However, it’s also less likely that I’ll want to do it, so I guess that cancels out.
Factor 1: Enjoyment
On a sunny day, it’s great. In summer, when days are long, cycling around my city for a couple of hours is delightful. Great time out. ‘Life affirming’. I get to sprint cycle around traffic, learn all the good routes around the city, and chat to the other drivers at the restaurants.
Actually, chatting to the other drivers is the best part. Some of the drivers from Eastern Europe were getting some serious wages, pulling in over £1,000 a week. I learned all the best routes, restaurants to avoid, cool places to visit in my city that I’d never even heard of… generally a good time.
On the flipside, winter sucked hard. Pay was a lot better but it’s no fun riding around with the increased traffic. Even on a dayglo yellow bike with a lot of lights on it, cars often don’t see you at night. Also, when it’s freezing cold out, any wait between orders longer than 5 minutes is an absolute downer.
Right now, with COVID, there’s the added disadvantage of trying to communicate with a mask on, although the traffic in my city is slightly reduced. I guess those two factors cancel out.
I’m going to rate this a 3.5 out of 5.
Factor 2: Variety
I work a desk job normally, so getting paid to basically do cardio is a huge plus. For me – but maybe not for you – I’ll grade this a 5 out of 5.
Factor 3: Scalability
Uber Eats has almost zero scale potential. It’s all about trading time for money. Saving your energy for peak times gives it a slight scale element but to be honest it doesn’t get scaled up much at all.
That’s a solid 1 out of 5.
Factor 4: New Skills
Now, on the face of it, cycling from A to B doesn’t sound much like developing new skills. In that way, it really isn’t. However, I did learn a lot about optimising my time for maximum benefit, seeing how the little changes made a big difference to hourly rate.
Well, a big rate increase, not a big amount. When I started, I was barely earning £7 an hour. A month in, I got it to £10 an hour minimum, and I learned to go home if that rate dropped. It’s not much, but it set an hourly rate on my time.
I reckon a 2 out of 5 for new skills.
Factor 5: Energy Drain
Physically, Uber Eats is super draining. Mentally, it can be quite refreshing in the right circumstances. It depends on how you see it. There’s also the benefit that Uber doesn’t make you stick to a schedule or delivery frequency, so when you get tired of it you can just ignore it for a while and come back when you’re ready. As side hustles go, that’s not too draining, so I’m going to rate this a solid 4 out of 5.
Final Scores
| Factor | Score |
|---|---|
| 1. Enjoyment | 3.5 |
| 2. Variety | 5 |
| 3. Scalability | 1 |
| 4. New skills | 2 |
| 5. Energy drain | 4 |
| Overall rating (mean) | 3.1 |
…Would You Like To Know More?
Uber aren’t paying me for this, as you can probably tell from the scores and the review. As a side hustle, it has been OK, but not necessarily great. I enjoy it in the summer and before the need to wear masks at every restaurant it was pretty sociable. However, if financial independence is your aim, Uber Eats alone probably isn’t the most effective long-term play.
If you do decide to sign up and fancy paying back in karma, consider signing up with my referral code. You can sign up here and if you use my link I think Uber pays me a bit when you reach a certain number of deliveries, but it doesn’t cost you anything. However, maybe check out other side hustles before you jump the gun, as the scalability on this one is so obviously low.
