The Datum Report

Occupation 8213 · Process, plant and machine operatives

Taxi and cab drivers and chauffeurs

Half of full-time taxi and cab drivers and chauffeurs in the UK earn more than £26,783 a year, and half earn less.

Taxi and cab drivers and chauffeurs drive motor cars for private individuals, government departments and industrial and commercial organisations, drive taxis for public hire, drive new cars to delivery points and drive motorcycles and other motor vehicles.

How people enter it

No academic qualifications are required but most entrants require a clean, current driving licence and a medical examination. Local authorities typically set their own tests of local knowledge and additional driving tests before awarding licences.

What the work involves

• checks tyres, brakes, lights, oil, water and fuel levels and general condition of vehicle before start of journey
• drives passenger-carrying motor cars, taxis and other motor cars and motorcycles, complying with road and traffic regulations
• collects passengers when hailed or in response to telephone/radio message and helps them to secure their luggage
• conveys passenger to destination and helps unload luggage
• cleans, services and maintains vehicle or motorcycle

Also called

Carriage driver · Chauffeur · Mini cab driver · Taxi driver · Taxi owner

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for taxi and cab drivers and chauffeurs, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 2 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Bus and coach drivers · Delivery drivers and couriers · Driving instructors · Heavy and large goods vehicle drivers · Road transport drivers n.e.c.