A Glimpse into the Invisible Lives of London’s Food Delivery Riders

Anon Yu Henrikson, Features Editor, BA International Relations & Korean

Take a walk around London and you are almost guaranteed to see some of them. Men dressed in brightly coloured jackets, racing through the streets on speedy bicycles. However, despite their colorful gear and high speed, the food delivery riders of London often blend into the streetscape. Perhaps are they such a common sight that, along with many other blue-collar workers, they become a part of our blurred peripheral vision, essentially invisible. For many students, utilising delivery services from apps like Deliveroo and Uber Eats is an easy solution after a long day of studying. However, the act of ordering food online can create a sense of distance between oneself and the little cycle icon that one closely follows on the app’s map function. Who are these men, cycling through the night to deliver fried chicken to the heartbroken, tired, and drunken among us? What do they make of their own job, and what do they wish people knew about their job?

One evening, I saw two delivery workers in the Brunswick Centre, just a 5-minute walk from SOAS. They were parking their cycles outside the large Waitrose that looms over the rest of the commercial plaza. Careful of not interrupting their work, that after all strongly subscribes to the philosophy that ‘time is money’, I chose to stay back and simply observe. As the two men walked towards the Waitrose entrance, a third man appeared, walking alongside his cycle (the Brunswick Centre bans cycling on their premises). The three men exchanged waves and chatted for a bit before moving on with their individual work. Despite delivery work being quite a lonely job, these three men seemed to have found each other in the sea of other delivery workers. Another thing that struck me was that all of them used e-bikes from a rental company called ‘E-port’.

Following multiple police crackdowns on illegally modified e-bikes, the BBC reported that most of the riders who used such e-bikes were food delivery workers trying to do their work more efficiently. In this job, the faster one can get from A to B, the more money one can make. Perhaps the fear of accidentally using an illegal bike, as well as the high one-time cost of purchasing an e-bike, led many to use third-party sources such as E-port to get ahold of their most important tool of trade.

Anyone who has ever stayed in or visited Dinwiddy House, the main SOAS accommodation, is familiar with the gathering of impatient food delivery workers waiting outside the main entrance to drop food off and receive their two-digit number from pyjama-clad SOASians. As a past Dinwiddy-dweller myself, I ventured to the King’s Cross beige brick block to see if any delivery workers waiting outside would be willing to talk to me. Previous attempts to interview random workers on the street had been unsuccessful, as most of them politely said they already had their next order awaiting. However, I thought I might catch someone as they were waiting outside the sliding doors of Dinwiddy.

I quickly came in contact with a young man who wished to remain anonymous. When asked why, he informed me that he was a student doing this work part-time, and that students are not allowed to do the work he was doing (presumably because student visas do not allow self-employed work). The man, showed me his account on the delivery app he uses, where his profile picture was that of a young South Asian woman. ‘This is my landlord,’ he informed me, implying that he used a profile she had created for him. He also added that he regularly worries about being stopped by the police, as he often works more than the allowed 20 hours per week that student visa-holders can work. However, according to him, he is not alone. ‘Probably about 90% of all food delivery riders are students who do this to afford their education,’ Bilal stated. Bilal, hailing from Pakistan’s Punjab-region, is doing his MSc in Fashion at a London university, and sees food delivery as a last resort to pay his tuition fees. ‘Everything in this country is about having references,’ Bilal stated, adding that without any connections, it feels impossible to get a job in the UK.

‘The job is fine, but it can be hard when it’s cold and raining. Sometimes my shoes are filled with water after a whole night of cycling through the rain,’ Bilal told me, adding that this is especially hard for the food delivery workers who come from warmer countries. According to Bilal, the vast majority of workers come from South Asian countries with warmer climates, like India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Apart from cold London weather, the customers can sometimes cause annoyance. Bilal told me that some customers have requested him to deliver their food to their door, even though they live on the fifth floor in a building without a lift. Luckily, he added that most customers come to their street-level front door when picking up their food, thereby making an already straining job a bit easier.

Bilal himself uses a bike from the aforementioned hire company E-port. He pays a weekly rental fee to rent the bike, and considering the fee he also pays to have a delivery account on the app he uses, he spends about £200 each week on the basic tools he needs to do his job.

When asked if there were any things he enjoyed about his job, Bilal smiled before replying that there are two things he really likes about being a food delivery rider. First, he said that ‘no one can force you to work’. Delivery riders decide for themselves what time they work and pick up orders. Second, Bilal told me that ‘London is an amazing city where you meet so many different people from around the world. In this job I get to see all of London, and sometimes I meet people who strike up a conversation with me. I really appreciate that,’ he said, perhaps hinting that more people should treat their food delivery workers as actual people, worthy of a quick conversation. Lastly, I asked Bilal if he has a dream job, to which he responded that he wants to return to Pakistan after finishing his studies to work in the fashion industry. I thanked him, he wished me all the best with my studies, picked up another order on his phone, and drove off into the dark London night.

Some days earlier, I spoke with Abdul in an empty Chinatown alleyway. ‘There are few orders right now, so I’m just waiting here,’ he told me. Stemming from Sylhet in eastern Bangladesh, Abdul also described food delivery work as a last resort. With only secondary education from Bangladesh, he feels like there are no other jobs accessible to him in the UK.

Abdul’s work days are tough, usually beginning at noon and finishing at around 2 am, depending on how busy it is. He does this almost every day. Similar to Bilal, Abdul finds the weather conditions especially harsh, telling me that the only things his employers supply him with are an insulated bag and a jacket. At the time that I spoke to Abdul, he was working for the Chinese app HungryPanda, primarily because it was easy to get into. For other apps, like Deliveroo, the application process can take one to two years, according to Abdul. He told me he is still waiting for his application to be processed at Deliveroo and UberEats. Additionally, Abdul told me his wife is living with him in the UK. As she works in a car shop, while he works long hours every day to make ends meet, they sadly do not see each other that often.

Despite the constant pressure of the gig delivery industry, Bilal and Abdul took time out of their working hours to talk to me, both seemingly eager to share their experiences despite some language barriers. As customers, many of us might forget that the simple act of ordering food comes at the cost of someone else’s physical and emotional labour. Beyond structural changes, small gestures, like offering a friendly word or showing patience, can make a world of difference. At the end of the day, delivery workers are not just a faceless icon on your app, but individuals trying to make ends meet. Let us acknowledge their humanity and do our part to ensure their well-being.