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“I make greater as a cleaner than I do from working as a food delivery rider,” notes Marina, a from Brazil woman who balances two jobs to sustain her adolescent daughters.

It’s a “nonsense, horrible job”, says Adam, from Sudan, who combines riding for a delivery platform with pursuing a law degree. “On a good day I can earn £50 or £60, despite the fact that it’s really hard doing deliveries using a pedal bike.”

“As humans we are overlooked to the people we deliver to,” says Mohammed, a Syrian refugee who also works as a delivery rider. “People don’t consider our challenges and our dreams. I’ve heard people in this country talk about lower-tier citizens; delivery riders are actually third-class citizens.”

Marina, Adam and Mohammed are just a few of the countless food delivery riders in the UK, primarily working for the major 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 within the law in difficult, meagerly compensated conditions that many Britons would find unbearable.

“I have worked for every service 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 job environment they’re all essentially the same.”

Women Riders Encounter Additional Hazards

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 risks such as tiredness, low pay and accidents and wounds, as well as unwanted attention from male customers.

“At times men answer the door to women riders unclothed or in their intimate apparel,” says Marina. “One man I delivered food to tried to drag me into his house. Another struck me across the face in the street. Doing this job makes you feel that you are not a individual, just a food transportation unit.”

“Everyone presumes all riders are working against the law, which is not the case,” adds Rayan, from Pakistan. “We are vulnerable to being assaulted – I’ve been attacked twice by youths who were just doing it for fun. We are invisible and exposed at the same time.”

Virtual Isolation

None of the riders interviewed said they had ever met a manager from any of the platforms in person. All said their only communication was with the app, which offers them deliveries that are available and the compensation they will be paid – sometimes only about £3.

“We are a very contemporary kind of slave,” says Mohammed. “The taskmaster is the app that sends us our orders.”

All the riders said that they hate delivery work, but have no choice if they want to earn money legally. Residency and residency conditions mean that many do not have the right to do jobs defined as “highly skilled” by the government.

When it’s really icy I have to defrost my legs with a blow dryer

Physical Hardships

Pleasant days are the worst for delivery riders, as potential customers are more likely to leave home and collect their own food. Cycling along poorly lit streets, wet with rain and with reduced visibility, increases the danger of accidents. But at least they will be earning.

Rayan, an English graduate who dreams of becoming a professor of English literature and writing novels, says the only way he can manage is by working for as many hours as he can endure 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 hair dryer. The freezing sensation of the wind and rain makes my skin white. The prospect of going out on the road again after warming up is impossible to bear.”

Some days he works in multiple layers of socks, multiple layers of trousers and multiple coats.

“I still dream 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 arranged with a sponsor but I was tricked. There was no sponsor, so I am doing deliveries, working 10- to 12-hour days or for as long as I have the energy.”

Economic Burden

When he started to work as a delivery rider he used to borrow books from the library to read while he was awaiting orders to come through. “My beloved author is Dostoevsky, who I call the ‘master of writing’. I particularly love The Idiot, but I don’t read any more because I’m too fatigued. This work has just drained everything out of me.”

Rayan says that riders on bikes can earn about £300 per week, while those on motorcycles can earn about £450, but the moped group have to pay coverage and gas costs. “I don’t earn enough to maintain my wife and child, so I have had to secure a loan just to get by.”

The perception among riders that they have been “erased” as humans from the operating system comes up repeatedly. They see themselves as simply a tool joining three dots – the delivery company, the shops or eateries where they retrieve the orders, and the customers who receive the food.

“All we riders can concentrate on is money and how to continue in order to earn enough to survive,” says Rayan.

Prolonged Employees

Bruno, from Brazil, describes himself as a “veteran” 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 requiring to speak the language,” he says. “I persist doing it because I have a son I need to deliver and pick up from school, and I need work that has versatility.”

A team of researchers at Birmingham University recently published findings about the mistreatment of migrants doing delivery and domestic work.

Food delivery platforms have found a dial that allows them to go backwards on workers’ rights

“The UK food delivery sector has become a ‘experimental area’ for a new model of migration governance,” the researcher says. This work is marketed as “adaptable” and “empowering”, but in reality “it combines work computerization, electronic surveillance and residency enforcement.”

Working conditions have become harsher since March, he says, when residency checks increased as part of a campaign on illegal working.

“These changes have effectively incorporated the unfriendly environment into platform work. This is a system where foreign workers are accepted only as long as they remain quiet, versatile and unseen. It’s time for a policy reset that puts workers’ self-respect and protections at the centre.”

Judicial Status

While the judicial authority ruled in 2021 that certain delivery drivers were “staff” rather than independent contractors, giving them to certain essential rights, the same court declared in 2023 that delivery riders are freelancers due to a “replacement provision”, a contractual 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 voluntary agreement with one major platform, for example, that is meant to ensure riders are paid at least the national minimum wage 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 not likely to earn the hourly national minimum wage.

“Food delivery platforms have found in the on-demand work a dial that allows them to regress on workers’ rights,” says a union representative. “The result is a labor force plagued with monetary, bodily and psychological struggles. With such poor earnings, riders are forced to take dangerous risks on the road to cut delivery times. With no holiday pay, they get no time to recover. And with no fixed pay they are kept in perpetual worry about whether or not they will be able to make ends meet that week.”

Service Response

The delivery platforms reject this description. “The vast majority of riders tell us they are satisfied 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 freely partner with a union. Earlier this year we increased riders’ minimum hourly earnings assurance and have introduced many valuable safeguards, such as free insurance, illness 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