The one-line version
Food delivery is fast to start, flexible to the hour, and paid per drop on a bike, moped or car. Parcel delivery is a van job with longer, earlier days, paid per parcel, per route or by the hour, and it is where the employed contracts and the bigger weekly totals are. Most people who do both start on food and move to parcels once they want a full-time income.
Side by side
| Food delivery | Parcel delivery | |
|---|---|---|
| Who you work for | Deliveroo, Just Eat, Uber Eats. All three engage riders as self-employed independent contractors. | A mix. Royal Mail, Ocado and DHL employ drivers directly; Evri, DPD, Amazon and Yodel work is mostly self-employed through local subcontractors. |
| Vehicle | Bicycle, e-bike, moped or car. You supply and insure it. | Small or long-wheelbase van, sometimes a 3.5t Luton or 7.5t. Employed roles supply the van; owner-driver rounds don't. |
| How you're paid | Per delivery, with the fee shown before you accept. Peak-time boosts on Friday and Saturday evenings. | Per parcel or per route on self-employed rounds; hourly or salaried on employed contracts. |
| Hours | Evenings and weekends carry most of the demand. Log in and out as you like. | Early starts, full days, five or six days a week on a set round or rota. |
| Time to start | Days. Sign up in the app, upload documents, pass a background check. | One to three weeks. Licence checks, right-to-work, sometimes a driving assessment and van induction. |
| Your costs | Vehicle, fuel or charging, phone, and your own insurance. Tax through Self Assessment. | On owner-driver rounds: van hire or finance, hire-and-reward insurance, fuel, and Self Assessment. On employed contracts: nothing. |
| Best for | Students, second incomes, people who want to pick their hours night by night. | Full-time income, a predictable week, and anyone who wants holiday pay and a pension. |
Employment status is the real difference
On all three food apps you are an independent contractor. Just Eat spells it out in its courier terms: you are responsible for your own tax and free to work for other platforms. That freedom is genuine, but so is the exposure. No sick pay, no holiday pay, and quiet weeks are your problem. Parcel delivery splits both ways. Employed roles at Royal Mail and Ocado come with a rota, paid breaks and a pension. Self-employed rounds for the parcel networks look like the food model on paper, but the commitment is a full day, every day, on a route the depot expects you to cover.
What the money looks like
Food delivery pays a fee per order that reflects distance and time, and the fee is shown before you accept, so you can decline the bad ones. The catch is that the fee only covers the moments you are moving; waiting outside a restaurant is unpaid. Earnings swing with the evening, the weather and how many riders are logged on. Parcel work pays for volume. A self-employed van round is priced per parcel or per route, so a 120-stop day is a known number before you start, and employed contracts pay by the hour with weekend and evening premiums. Our courier pay guide puts real numbers against the parcel side, and the best-paid delivery jobs piece ranks the whole ladder.
Vehicle and running costs
A bike and a phone get you onto a food platform for almost nothing. A car or moped adds fuel, insurance and wear, and that insurance must cover food delivery, which a standard policy does not. Parcel work on your own van is a business with a balance sheet: van hire or finance, hire-and-reward cover, fuel, and a tax return that treats those as expenses. The upside is that the van earns a full day's money; the downside is that it costs money on the days it doesn't.
Which one to pick
If you want hours you can switch on tonight and off tomorrow, food delivery is the answer, and the apps will onboard you this week. If you want a full-time income, a predictable rota or an employer, look at parcel delivery, and look at the employed roles first. The listings on Delivery Driver HQ are almost all on the parcel side: courier jobs, van delivery jobs and multi-drop routes, filtered by postcode, and free for drivers. Many people run both for a while, food in the evenings and a van round by day, until one of them wins.