Delivery Driver

What is a Delivery Driver?

The following job responsibilities are common for individuals in delivery driver roles:

• Transport food, goods, packages, and other items from one location to another
• Collect payments for delivered goods or acquire a signature for acknowledgement of goods received for later invoicing by company representatives
• Load and unload company or personal vehicles with delivery goods
• Deliver items to a variety of addresses in differing weather and driving conditions

A Day in the Life

Delivery drivers spend the largest part of their day transporting items from one location to another. In some positions—like package delivery—drivers load an entire day’s worth of deliveries into a truck at the beginning of a shift and spend the rest of the day making deliveries. In other positions—like food delivery drivers—a shift will consist of going back and forth between your place of employment and delivery residences throughout your shift.

Delivery drivers who operate company vehicles may also be responsible for cleaning vehicles after shifts. Delivery drivers who make deliveries using their own vehicles may be responsible for conducting routine maintenance on their vehicles in order to ensure cars don’t break down or experience issues while on deliveries. Drivers may also be responsible for accepting payments for delivered goods and making change from payments, or they may need to get a delivery statement signed after a delivery.

Most delivery drivers make deliveries within a small radius around or near their place of employment. Unlike truck drivers, delivery drivers rarely—if ever—are required to travel outside of their own community to execute their job responsibilities. Delivery drivers may be required to make deliveries in unfavorable driving conditions at times as items still need to be delivered regardless of weather conditions like ice, snow, heavy rain, and dense fog.

Typical Work Schedule

Delivery drivers are commonly required to work all shifts—first, second, and third—and often work both weekends and holidays.

Projected Job Growth

The last decade has seen a huge surge in home delivery services. More companies are offering delivery for common items like groceries, and restaurant delivery services are allowing customers to get food delivered from any restaurant. These popular services are creating an increasing demand for individuals to fill delivery driver roles.

Delivery Driver Specializations

• Restaurant delivery drivers transport food from restaurants to consumer homes. Restaurant drivers may work for a specific restaurant that offers delivery services, or they may work for a service like UberEats that delivers food to consumers from a variety of restaurants.
• Package delivery drivers work for companies like Amazon, UPS, FedEx, and DHL and deliver packages from a distribution hub to consumer homes.
• Grocery delivery drivers transport groceries from the store in refrigerated trucks to consumer homes and may also help consumers get groceries into their homes after unloading orders.
• B2B delivery drivers transport goods between local businesses. These drivers operate small company trucks and take deliveries from one local business to another. For example, a local produce warehouse may employ delivery drivers to transport goods to local restaurants.

Typical Employers

Top employers for restaurant delivery drivers include popular pizza chains like Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, and Domino’s Pizza and delivery services like UberEats, Takeout Taxi, Postmates, and Eat24. Popular package delivery services that hire drivers include UPS, FedEx, DHL, and Amazon. Additionally, many grocery stores, florists, and local distributors hire drivers to transport goods to customers.