Speaking technically as an exenger (as of today):

Firstly, welcome to London!

1. By most accounts, not pretty. As ever, you'll be able to scrape by if you work hard for five days a week at a decent company.

2. Spend a few days riding around with an A-Z. Even a loose idea of what's where will be handy in your first weeks as a courier. Your first company may well test your knowledge a little... so be prepared to demonstrate at least a rudimentary understanding of London.
Where you work can vary from company. The bulk of the courier's city is essentially divided into two halves: the City and the West End. The City's (EC1-EC4, mainly) the financial district, so it's sort of more mundane but jobs tend to be clustered quite close, meaning you can get alot done very quickly. The West End (W1, mainly) is much more of a mixed bag, from creative/boho Soho, chic Mayfair, colourful Fitzrovia, through to the somewhat lifeless Marylebone. Sort of down the middle you have the touristy thoroughfare Covent Garden, and alot of work comes out of the legal chambers of the Temple and Gray's Inn.
When I worked at City Sprint, a W14 job (way west) would be part and parcel (as it were), at my last company Reuter Brooks (Mach 1, whatever) the circuit was much more condensed, for better or worse.

3. The biggest companies are City Sprint, Reuter Brooks/Mach 1 and Excel. Other ones worth checking out are Creative and Addison Lee, the former being quite a social circuit not devoid of decent work and the latter seemingly rife with cash jobs. I used to think you should start at a small company and work your way up but the industry seems to be at such a low point now that I'd recommend that, equipped with all necessary techniques of persuasion, you wangle your way into a bigger company from the get-go.

Good luck : )

1. Slow in general but should pick up a bit as the summer ends. You can probably get hired but not get much actual work.

2. Work out some good routes as the first thing probably. The work goes everywhere from e14 to w14. I found smaller companies had longer single dockets and larger ones had several shorter dockets in a more concentrated area.

3. Any one that will hire you will be a good one to start. Just call all of them. Starting off at a smaller firm might be a good, they should all give you some sort of test for where certain landmarks are or what order to drop things or what roads but I doubt that would effect if they'd hire you too much.

I think Brixton Bikes is a co op.

Welcome to London, I've nothing to add to what Sideshow et al have said - good work!

Get a loud bell - pedestrians dont respond to hooters, they laugh and still step out. . .bells have a good effect, as do the 20 quid bottle air horns off ebay. And loud obscene shouting does the job lol.

"It doesn’t look good for 2009, and the reality is that there will be a lot of people working for a lot less than the statutory minimum wage, which is £5.73/hour. Based on a 40 hour week, that is £230. That is the figure that a working London cycle courier should be able to earn, on average, after paying for equipment (bike, PDA, radio, clothing etc), but before tax has been deducted.


thats interesting reading "my son" funny how you an your mates were having a pop at me for advertising a part time job offering 15 squid an hour, oh yeah i forgot, your all too good for this kind of work, rather be poncing about down brick lane sipping lattes, smoking roll ups and whinging about how you lost you garra last week because you could'nt get out of bed on time.

go on my son......................

"$1000 fixie bike with no brakes/gears". No brakes I understand. No gears though? Hard work I would think to earn any "$" at all