London taxi drivers are licensed and must have passed an extensive training course (the Knowledge). Unlike many other cities, the number of taxicab drivers in London is not limited.
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There are thousands of streets and landmarks within a six mile radius of Charing Cross. Anyone who wants to drive an iconic London cab must memorize them all: the Knowledge of London. The Knowledge was introduced as a requirement for taxi drivers in 1865.
And a cab driver in London is required to know the quickest way off by heart. That is because they know the center of the British capital; they'll have committed 320 runs across 25,000 streets, encompassing at least 20,000 landmarks, to memory.
It turns out that to become a Black Cab driver in London applicants need to study for two to four years and during that time memorize an incredible 25,000 streets and 20,000 landmarks within a 25-mile radius of Charing Cross in London.
“London cabbies have remarkable brains,” said Hugo Spiers, a professor of cognitive neuroscience who is leading the study with several graduate students. “Specifically, their brains' are larger in a region that shrinks early in Alzheimer's disease — the hippocampus.”
For all that, you can thank the Knowledge, a 153-year-old system for memorizing every street and landmark in a six square-mile area of central London. The Knowledge requires all cabbies to navigate between any two points in the city entirely from memory.
In other words, taxi drivers had plumper memory centers than their peers. It seemed that the longer someone had been driving a taxi, the larger his hippocampus, as though the brain expanded to accommodate the cognitive demands of navigating London's streets.
Start on about £30,700 per annum rising to about £38,850 per annum depending on experience with further opportunities for overtime. If you're already a qualified PCV driver, you'll start on a higher salary that reflects your years on the road.
It's easier to handle and manage cash compared to other modes of payment. Cash payments are immediate and there is no need to wait for the payment to be processed. Some taxi drivers may prefer cash payments to avoid paying fees associated with card payments.
According to the National Careers Service, an experienced taxi driver working around 40 hours a week might expect to make around £30,000 per year. As a one-person business, it's largely down to you. If you're prepared to put in the hours and work at anti-social times, your profits could soar.
Uber says that the typical driver will earn up to £30 per hour in London but we think that is ambitious. The Otto Car family says that the average amount they earned during 2022/23 was £20.48 per hour. This is not as much as Uber's official estimate yet it's still entirely respectable.
Working with Addison Lee, you can out-earn the average PHV driver and make at least £1 000 a week before vehicle hire. If you're a licenced PCO driver with your own car, you could earn at least £1 500 a week for the first 4 weeks of driving for Addison Lee.