Royal Mail employs its drivers
Royal Mail is the exception among the big networks: the person delivering your post is an employee, not a contractor. Driving roles come in three broad shapes. Delivery postmen and postwomen cover a walk or a van round from a local delivery office. Delivery drivers run van routes between offices and to business customers. HGV drivers move mail between the regional mail centres, mostly at night. All of them come with holiday pay, a pension and a fixed shift.
Roles are advertised as permanent, fixed-term, or seasonal. The seasonal intake is large every autumn for the Christmas peak, and it's the most common way in: a fixed-term contract that can convert to permanent when a vacancy opens.
Parcelforce Worldwide
Parcelforce is Royal Mail's parcel business and hires differently. Depots employ drivers directly, and they also take on self-employed owner drivers who run a dedicated route in their own van. If you see "Parcelforce" in an advert, check which of the two it is, because the pay model and the vehicle requirement change completely.
What you need
- A full UK driving licence for van roles, with the HGV category and a Driver CPC for mail centre trunking.
- The right to work in the UK, and a background check covering the last few years of employment. Some sites also require a criminal record declaration.
- The fitness to be on your feet and lifting for a full shift. Delivery walks are long, and parcel volumes have grown.
- For Parcelforce owner driver routes, your own van, business insurance and registration with HMRC as self-employed.
How the pay works
Employed roles pay an hourly rate set nationally, with premiums for early starts, nights and weekends, and overtime through peak. Owner driver rounds at Parcelforce are paid per route. Because Royal Mail rates are public and negotiated, they're a useful benchmark when you're comparing a self-employed offer elsewhere.
Christmas seasonal jobs: when they open and how to get one
The seasonal intake is the biggest single hiring event in UK delivery. Last Christmas Royal Mail advertised over 20,000 temporary roles, most of them mail sorters, with a few thousand parcel delivery driver and collection roles and a smaller pool of LGV and MGV drivers moving mail between centres. Four role types are advertised: Mail Sorter, Parcel Delivery Driver, LGV & MGV Driver, and Customer Service Assistant.
Timing matters more than anything else. Vacancies start opening from September, site by site, and the busiest weeks are late November through to the last posting dates before Christmas. Rounds are filled as they open, so the people who get the driving roles are usually the ones who applied in the first fortnight, not the ones who searched in December. Royal Mail runs a register-your-interest list on its careers site that emails you when your area opens.
Most seasonal vacancies are handled by Angard Staffing, Royal Mail's own agency, so don't be surprised when the application sits on an Angard page. LGV and MGV driver roles go through Pertemps and Manpower instead. For a parcel delivery driver role you need a full, manual UK driving licence and the right to work in the UK; the rest is fitness and availability across the peak weeks.
Seasonal roles elsewhere
Royal Mail isn't the only network that staffs up for peak. Parcel subcontractors for DPD, Evri, Amazon and Yodel add van routes from October, and those are the roles that post on Delivery Driver HQ. Create a free driver account and add a job alert for your postcode: you'll get an email when van, multi-drop and seasonal roles go live near you, instead of checking every day.
How to apply
All Royal Mail Group vacancies, including Parcelforce, go through the group careers site, searchable by postcode. Listings below are roles on Delivery Driver HQ that name Royal Mail or Parcelforce, with the latest van and multi-drop work underneath.