More than one in six jobs being advertised in the UK requires applicants to be able to drive, analysis suggests.
Research by the RAC Foundation shows that in the first week of October 2023 a total of 1,092,172 recruitment ads were posted on the job vacancy aggregator site Adzuna.
Of the 1,092,172 advertisements, 189,608 (17.4%) explicitly or implicitly required those applying to have at least a standard driving licence because the job was either:
- specifically for a driver,
- or required driving during the course of work,
- or a car was needed to reach work (due to reduced accessibility by public transport).
The analysis looked at data for the same week in October in the eight years from 2016 to 2023, inclusive.
Whilst the highest proportion of jobs requiring the ability to drive was seen in 2020 at the height of the pandemic (120,190 out of 611,702, or 19.6%) the proportion for 2023 was still higher than in any of the four years pre-Covid.
Table 1. Job adverts and driving requirements, 2016-2023 (first week of October in each year):
| Year | All Adzuna Adverts | ||
| Driving | Total | Driving % | |
| 2016 | 178,535 | 1,173,630 | 15.2 |
| 2017 | 187,334 | 1,178,276 | 15.9 |
| 2018 | 182,840 | 1,141,802 | 16.0 |
| 2019 | 167,323 | 1,070,039 | 15.6 |
| 2020 | 120,190 | 611,702 | 19.6 |
| 2021 | 241,536 | 1,296,599 | 18.6 |
| 2022 | 185,792 | 1,083,525 | 17.1 |
| 2023 | 189,608 | 1,092,172 | 17.4 |
| Total | 1,453,158 | 8,647,745 | 16.8 |
Using specific occupation categories as defined by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the data revealed that the need to drive was, to a greater or lesser degree, a requirement in a wide variety of roles, for example:
- 100% of driving instructors
- 67% of plumbers
- 59% of estate agents and auctioneers
- 34% of care workers and home carers
The data contained adverts for 97% (398) of all occupations registered by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in the UK labour market.
Table 2: Top occupations with driving as an explicit or implicit requirement in job ads (2023)
| Rank | Occupation
(based on Office for National Statistics classifications) |
% of ads for this occupation |
| 1 | Driving instructors | 100 |
| 2 | Large goods vehicle drivers | 99.3 |
| 3 | Road transport drivers (not classified elsewhere) | 97.9 |
| 4 | Delivery drivers and couriers | 95.6 |
| 5 | Plumbers and heating and ventilating installers and repairers | 67.5 |
| 6 | Vehicle technicians, mechanics and electricians | 64.4 |
| 7 | Estate agents and auctioneers | 58.5 |
| 8 | Vehicle and parts salespersons and advisers | 51 |
| 9 | Metal working production and maintenance fitters | 41.7 |
| 10 | Carpenters and joiners | 37.8 |
| 11 | Electricians and electrical fitters | 34 |
| 12 | Chartered surveyors | 34 |
| 13 | Care workers and home carers | 33.9 |
| 14 | Social workers | 33.7 |
| 15 | Business sales executives | 31.9 |
| 16 | Fork-lift truck drivers | 31.9 |
| 17 | Property, housing and estate managers | 29.9 |
| 18 | Sales accounts and business development managers | 22.9 |
| 19 | Quantity surveyors | 22.2 |
| 20 | Production managers and directors in construction | 21.9 |
| 21 | Civil engineers | 21 |
| 22 | IT user support technicians | 13.3 |
| 23 | Warehouse operatives | 12.9 |
| 24 | Business and financial project management professionals | 11.3 |
| 25 | Sales and retail assistants | 11.1 |
| 26 | Human resources and industrial relations officers | 10.6 |
| 27 | Customer service occupations (not classified elsewhere) | 10.6 |
| 28 | Advertising and marketing associate professionals | 10.3 |
| 29 | Other registered nursing professionals | 7.5 |
| 30 | Chefs | 7.3 |
Note: When the driving requirement is expected to be at 100%, but shows lower values (e.g. 99.3% of “Large goods and vehicle drivers”), the discrepancy may be because: 1) the text search was not fully able to capture the driving requirements in the job adverts; 2) some driver or courier jobs may not require holding a driving licence, or no driving requirement is explicitly or implicitly stated; 3) the ONS Standard Occupational Classification is incorrectly attributed. Source: Adzuna.
The sectors least likely to require job applicants to have the ability to drive were: teaching and education; culture, media and sport; and secretarial and administrative.
According to the ONS the average cost of a driving lesson is £35 per hour however they can be anywhere between £20 and £60.
