Guide · 11 min read

How much does a man with a van make?

Somebody always knows a bloke clearing a grand a week, and nobody ever says what went out of the account before Friday. Here’s the long way round instead: what a job pays, a worked week, every cost taken off, and what’s actually left.

Updated 18 October 2026

The headline number

The short answer, then the honest one

Ask around and you’ll get a rate before you get an answer. In most areas a man with a van goes out somewhere around £30 to £60 an hour with a two-hour minimum, and a full day lands roughly £250 to £450. London is not Lincolnshire.

That’s turnover, not take-home. Diesel, insurance, the van and a mate on the heavy days come off before a penny of it’s yours, and so do the Tuesdays nobody mentions.

So there isn’t one number. There’s yours, and the rest of this page is how to get to it.

Worked ranges, not a promise. Rates and costs swing a lot by area, van and season. Ask an accountant about tax.

Part 1

What a job pays

Before you can work out what you make, you need the two numbers underneath it: what a job goes out at, and how many you honestly fit in a week.

1. The bloke who cleared a grand last week

You’re at the trade counter and a bloke’s telling you he took a grand last week. Eyebrow up. He might well have done, and it still tells you nothing about what he makes.

Three things hide inside a number like that. It’s usually a peak week, end of the month, when tenancies run out. It’s turnover, before a drop of diesel came off it. And on the big jobs there were two in the van, so half the graft, and a chunk of the money, was somebody else’s.

None of that makes him a liar. It makes the number useless for planning yours. What you want is duller: what’s left at the end of an average month, dead Tuesdays and all.

The same week, three different numbers

What he says he took	roughly £1,000
Running the van for the week (diesel, the van itself, the cover, the road tax and the phone)	roughly £150–£380
A mate for two of the days	roughly £200–£280
Left before tax	roughly £340–£650
Tax and National Insurance still to come. Ask an accountant

2. What does a man and van job actually pay?

A woman in Penge rings on a Sunday. One sofa, up the road to Brixton, what do you want for it? Whatever comes out of your mouth is your business plan.

Two shapes cover nearly everything. Hourly for the small stuff: somewhere around £30 to £60 an hour in a lot of areas, with a two-hour minimum so a twenty-minute sofa isn’t a twenty-minute price. And a fixed price for house moves, because one number is what the customer wants. The odd one out is a quick local pickup: plenty of firms do those for a small flat price that comes in under the two-hour minimum.

The bands below are a starting point, not gospel. Ring three local firms as a customer and hear what they quote. That’s your real market rate. The van, the cover and the kit are in starting a man and van business.

Rough bands: then check what your own area does

Van and one man, hourly	somewhere around £30–£60
Minimum charge	usually two hours
Single sofa, local	roughly £80–£150
An IKEA or Marketplace pickup	roughly £50–£100
1-bed flat, local	roughly £200–£300
2-bed house, local, two of you	roughly £350–£500
3-bed house, twenty miles	roughly £500–£800

3. A worked week: four days, one van

One van, one bloke, a mate in for the Friday. Four days on, one dead, not a fantasy week and not a bad one.

Monday is a single sofa across town, done before lunch. Tuesday is one pickup, dropped on the way back: small money, quick money. Wednesday nothing books, so you wash the van and try not to think about it. Thursday is a 1-bed flat, Penge to Bromley, finished by two. Friday is the 2-bed with your mate, stairs at both ends, and you’re eating at eight.

Wednesday wasn’t empty because the phone stayed quiet. It rang on the Tuesday, while you had a wardrobe on your back in somebody’s hallway (a 1-bed, wanting the Wednesday) and by the time you rang back she’d booked somebody else. That one never shows up in the sum.

The week on paper

Mon: single sofa, Croydon to Brixton	roughly £80–£150
Tue: one pickup, dropped right across town on the way back, so a bit over a quick local one	roughly £60–£110
Wed: nothing booked	£0
Thu: 1-bed flat, Penge to Bromley	roughly £200–£300
Fri: 2-bed with a mate, stairs both ends	roughly £350–£500
Turnover for the week	roughly £690–£1,060

4. What comes off before any of it’s yours

A grand through the account and you feel loaded until Monday, when the insurance goes out and a tyre lets go.

Insurance is four conversations, not one: carrying other people’s things for money (a broker will call that hire and reward), their stuff while it’s in the van, the banister you catch with a wardrobe, and employers’ liability once you’re paying a mate, which is the law rather than a nice-to-have. Whether a self-employed mate counts turns on how he’s taken on, so say exactly what the arrangement is. Ask a broker who knows removals; the lines below are a band, yours is a quote.

The rest you see coming: diesel, your mate’s day, and the charge zones where they apply: London’s ULEZ and congestion charge, and the Clean Air Zones in Birmingham, Bristol, Bath, Sheffield and a handful of other cities, with the Scottish cities running their own. Where there’s no zone, that’s a zero, half of why London and Lincolnshire never match. Check your plate on GOV.UK before you budget for it; a newer van walks through most of them for nothing.

Honest bit: the van is the one everyone leaves out. It wears out and gets replaced. Count it weekly, with the tyres and the MOT, or you’ll be short the year you need one.

Roughly what a week takes back

Diesel	roughly £60–£140, depending on the miles
The van: finance, or money put by	roughly £40–£120
Cover for carrying other people’s things	roughly £28–£41 a week, and well past that if you’re young or London-based. Ask a broker
Goods in transit and public liability	roughly £4–£12 a week
Road tax, tyres, servicing and the MOT, put by	roughly £15–£40
Phone, listings and card fees	roughly £5–£20
Running the van for the week	roughly £150–£380, then charges and a mate on top of that
Tolls, ULEZ and the congestion charge	£0 outside the zones. Inside London every van pays the congestion charge in its hours; a compliant van pays no ULEZ, a non-compliant one pays that too. Check your van and today’s rates before you price a London job
A mate, per day worked	roughly £100–£140

Cracking week. Then the insurance went out.

Part 2

What moves the number

Same van, same rates, two operators, and one takes home a lot more. It’s rarely the price on the quote. It’s the empty days, the jobs that ran long, and who got back to her first.

5. Take-home: quiet week, busy week, and a mate in the van

Same van, three different weeks. Busy ones burn more diesel and need more help, so the costs climb too.

The quiet week does the damage. Two jobs in, and the costs that don’t care (insurance, the van, the phone) bite the same as they do on a big one.

Honest bit: the two-man week catches people out. You invoice a couple of hundred more and what’s left over is a fraction of it, because your mate’s day is real money, paid whether the customer pays on time or not. He earns his keep on jobs you couldn’t do alone, not as a default way of earning more.

Tax isn’t in any of it yet: put a slice by every week and ask an accountant. VAT is its own question.

Three weeks, same van, same rates

Quiet solo week, two jobs: turnover	roughly £280–£450
That week’s costs, lighter on diesel, the standing ones unchanged	roughly £110–£280
Left before tax	roughly £0–£340 (at worst, a week worked for nothing)
Both jobs small instead	a sofa and a pickup, £130–£250 in: you’re down as much as £150
Busy solo week, four jobs, none needing two of you: turnover	roughly £540–£860
Left before tax, on the £150–£380 of costs above	roughly £160–£710
The same week with a mate on the Friday 2-bed: turnover	roughly £690–£1,060
Left before tax, after his day	roughly £170–£810

6. Fewer dead days beats a higher hourly rate

Wednesday. Van washed, phone silent, insurance still running. A day off you didn’t choose costs more than one you did.

Put your prices up a tenner and you’ll feel clever for a week. Fill one dead day and you’ll feel it every month. Two things fill them. Repeat and referral work: the customer you moved in March who’s now moving her mum. And the people who move other people: letting agents, storage places, house-clearance firms.

Both are slow burners, and most of them never ring. You need the one or two who do, then they quietly hold your diary up. The long version (who to drop in on, the messages to send, and the straight answer on lead sites at £15–£30 a go) is in how to get man and van work.

What one more small job is worth

One more small job: a sofa or a pickup	roughly £50–£150
Diesel on it	roughly £10–£25
The insurance, the van and the phone were paid either way
So roughly £25–£140 lands straight on the week

7. Price the whole job, not the bit you can see

The underquote is where the money quietly goes. You price a 1-bed off a phone call, turn up, and there’s a chest freezer in the garage and a shed to empty.

You do the job anyway, because you’re not leaving her stood in a hallway. It runs three hours over, the price was agreed on Tuesday, and you’ve worked a full day for less than a day pays.

Two fixes, both boring. Get the whole list before you price it (every room, the garage, the shed, the loft) and ask about stairs and parking.

Take a deposit too, roughly £30 to £50 or a slice of the price. It’s less about the money than who turns up: a deposited job happens, a pencilled-in one is why you had a free Wednesday.

The chest-freezer sum

Quoted off a phone call	roughly £200
What it should have gone out at	roughly £280–£350
Short on the day	roughly £80–£150
Twice a month for a year	roughly £1,900–£3,600

8. Whoever answers first usually gets the job

She messages four vans on a Sunday night. Three are on a job with the phone in the door pocket. Whoever gets a real price back first usually takes the work, not the cheapest, the first. That’s not fair. It’s just what happens.

That’s the bit Kwotly does. An enquiry lands on your own quote page already priced up from the customer’s list or photos, at your rates. You check it, change what you want, press send. Minutes, not evenings.

Small confession: it gets the list right most of the time. When it misses the chest freezer in the garage, you fix it in two taps before anything goes out. Nothing leaves without you pressing send. Free plan, no card: ten quotes a month, then £39 a month if you want more.

Sent, while the other three vans are still under a wardrobe.

Your numbers

Do the sum for your own week

Twenty minutes and your bank app. Use last week’s numbers, not a good week, last week.

Last week’s takings: every job, cash included, nothing rounded up.
What went in the tank last week, every fill-up, not the one you remember.
Everything that leaves the account whether you work or not (insurance, the van, the phone) divided down to a week.
What you paid a mate, plus any tolls, ULEZ or congestion charge.
Take the last three off the first. That’s your week before tax. Ask an accountant about the rest.

Straight answers

Questions people ask

Is man and van work worth it?

It can be, and it isn’t free money. The catch: the money follows your diary, not your rate. Four paid days a week is where it starts to add up, though four days of small jobs, once the costs come off, can still leave you thin. One small job in a week usually won’t clear the standing costs. The cover, the van and the phone go out whether you work or not. Before you buy anything, starting a man and van business has what it costs to get going.

Is man and van work seasonal?

Yes, and it’s worth planning for. Summer and the end of the month are usually the busy bits, school holidays and tenancies ending. January and February tend to be thin. Nobody can promise you the shape of your area’s year, so watch your own diary for twelve months, and put money by in August for February.

How many jobs a week is realistic?

Depends on their size. A day of small local runs might be two or three jobs; a full 2-bed move is the whole day. Once the phone’s ringing, somewhere around three to five jobs a week is a normal picture for one van, fewer in the first few months. Count paid days, not jobs, and what moves that isn’t how fast you work, it’s how many enquiries you answer first.

When do I have to register for VAT?

Roughly, it’s when your takings over a rolling twelve months go past the VAT registration threshold, and there’s a second test if you expect to go past it in one month on its own, so don’t lean on the rolling twelve alone. Check the current threshold on GOV.UK, because it’s changed before, and talk to an accountant before you’re near it. The bit that catches movers out: it’s turnover, not take-home: the money you collected, including the diesel and the mate’s wages you paid out of it.

What can I make doing it part-time?

Weekends and evenings are a real way in. Two Saturday jobs might be somewhere around £100 to £450 of turnover, nearer the bottom if they’re both small pickups, nearer the top if one of them’s a 1-bed. Off that comes diesel and your share of the insurance, which you pay whether you work one day or six. That’s the part-timer’s trap: the standing costs don’t halve when your days do. Sort the cover before the first paid job, ask a broker.

Day rate or hourly: which pays better?

Hourly with a two-hour minimum suits small and unpredictable jobs. A fixed price suits house moves: one number is what the customer wants. A day rate is the easiest of the three to lose on. The customer hears a ceiling, and you’ve priced a 2-bed the same as a 3-bed with a loft. Agree a finish time in writing before the van moves.

Guides

Know your number before you send the next price

The ranges on this page are somebody else’s. Yours come out of your own week, and filling that week starts with answering first. Kwotly gives you a quote page of your own: an enquiry lands already priced up from the customer’s list or photos, at your rates, ready to check and send in minutes. It gets the list right most of the time; you fix it in two taps before it goes out.

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