How Much Is a Man and Van per Hour in London?

"How much is a man and van per hour?" is the first thing most people ask, and the honest answer is that the hourly rate is only the start. In London, what you pay depends on four things: the hourly rate for the van and the number of people, the minimum booking, the miles driven, and how hard it is to get things from the door to the van. Stairs, parking and road charges matter more here than anywhere else in the country.

This guide sets out every one of those numbers from our own published rate card, works them through on five real-world jobs, and shows what the London market charges more widely, so you can read any quote, ours or anyone else's, and know what is in it.

Every vehicle on our rate card has a price for each crew size, from a driver working alone to four movers. These are the same rates for every London borough. Each rate covers the van and the people; mileage is charged on top.

Three things to notice in that chart. First, the jump from a driver only to two movers is £20 an hour on the Small Transit (SWB), which is less than most people expect for a second person. Second, the smaller vans have a 2-hour minimum and the Luton Box Van and lorries have 3 hours, because a bigger load always takes longer to handle. Third, mileage climbs with the size of the vehicle, from £1.20 to £3.60 a mile.

The full set of rates is on our pricing page, and the man and van in London page shows what each van usually suits.

An hourly rate means nothing until you know when the clock starts, how it is rounded, and what the least you can pay is. Here is how it works on every job we quote.

• The clock starts when the team arrives at your collection address. It is written that way into our quotation terms. The drive to your door is not counted in the hours

• The time covers loading, driving between the addresses and unloading. Driving time comes from the distance, at an average speed that is slow for short city trips and faster on motorways

• The total is rounded up to the next half hour. Two hours ten minutes of work is charged as two and a half hours

• It is never charged below the vehicle's minimum. That is 2 hours for the Small Transit (SWB) and Transit LWB, and 3 hours for the Luton Box Van and both lorries

• Overtime is only charged when the job grows. Our terms say extra hours apply only where the work runs over because of additional items, work you ask for on the day, waiting, access problems or delays outside the agreed scope

The diagram below follows one studio flat through those rules.

Notice where the time goes. The drive across town is the shortest part of the job. Most of a small London move is spent carrying, which is why the access at each end, not the distance, decides the bill. It is also why the rounding and the minimum matter so much: on a job that genuinely takes 2 hr 15 min, you pay for 2 hr 30 min.

The chart below shows the same rules for every crew size at once. Pick a van to see how its cost grows with the hours. The flat start of each line is the minimum: whether the job takes one hour or two, a two-hour minimum costs the same.

Rates on their own are hard to compare. These five jobs are priced with our rate card and the rules above. The studio and 1-bedroom flat use the loading and unloading times our quote form uses for those homes. The sofa job assumes 1 hour of carrying in total, which is typical for one sofa and a few boxes with easy access, but it is our assumption, not a fixed figure.

What the five jobs show

• The minimum decides small jobs. The sofa job takes about 1 hr 15 min, but it is charged at 2 hours. Adding a few more items to the same trip often costs nothing extra, because you have paid for the time anyway

• A second mover costs £40 more on the sofa job. On a job where the minimum applies, the extra person cannot finish it sooner, so it is a straight addition. Whether it is worth it depends on who else is lifting

• The distance barely moves the price. The 1-bedroom flat's 8 miles add £14.40 in mileage and about 15 min of driving. Across London, the miles are cheap and the stairs are not

• Stairs can be the biggest single line. The same 1-bedroom flat from a third floor with no lift adds £240: £10 per person, per flight, per hour, for 2 people, 6 flights and 2 hours of loading. That is more than half the cost of the move itself

These are estimates before anything specific to your addresses. Your written quote is built on your own inventory and access, and the team confirms the final price in writing.

This is the decision that most changes both the price and the day. A driver-only booking gets you the van and one person, who loads, drives and unloads. Nobody can safely carry a sofa, a fridge freezer or a double wardrobe alone, so anything that needs two people needs you, or a friend, to be the second pair of hands.

When a driver only works

• Boxes, bags and small furniture that one person can carry safely
• A single item that two people can carry, and you are able and willing to take one end
• Ground floor at both ends, or a lift that takes the item
• A short carry from the van to the door

When to book two movers

• Anything heavy or awkward: sofas, beds, wardrobes, washing machines, fridge freezers
• Stairs at either end without a lift that takes the furniture
• You cannot lift, or do not want to
• A whole room or flat, where two people working in pairs finish sooner

Two movers also matter for stairs. The stair charge is per person, so a driver-only booking has a lower stair charge an hour. But one person carrying alone up four flights is slow, and some items simply cannot go up stairs with one person. For a flat above the ground floor, two movers is almost always the better price per item moved, and the safer one. If you are weighing a bigger crew for a whole home, man and van or removal company explains where the line usually falls.

Choose the van by what is moving, not by the number of rooms. A one-bedroom flat with a big sofa, a king-size bed and a book collection can need more space than a sparsely furnished two-bedroom one. Here is what each vehicle on our rate card usually suits.

If the load is between two sizes, the bigger van is usually cheaper overall. A second trip in a smaller van means extra driving time and extra loading time, and both are charged by the hour. Going from the Small Transit (SWB) to the Transit LWB costs £10 an hour more with two movers, which is less than the cost of half an hour of a second trip.

Send photos of anything large, especially sofas, wardrobes and anything that has to come down a narrow staircase, and we will confirm the van before you book. If an item may not fit, see what to do when a sofa won't fit.

Outside London, a man and van quote is mostly hours and miles. In London, several things can add their own line. None of them are hidden in the hourly rate. Each appears separately in a written quote, so you can see what you are paying for and, often, avoid it.

Stairs and lifts

The ground floor is free. From the first floor up, stairs are charged at £10 per person, per flight, per hour, for the hours the team spends at that address. A floor is two flights. A working lift that takes the furniture removes the charge altogether.

If your building has a lift, check its size and whether it needs booking. A lift that takes boxes but not the sofa still saves most of the carrying. Moving a flat in London and moving from a tower block cover lifts, porters and building rules.

Parking

Every minute the crew walks between the van and your door is paid time. In a controlled parking zone or on a busy street, a parking suspension reserves space outside for the van. You apply to the council and pay its fee, and we plan the van and crew around it.

Council fees vary a lot. As one example, Southwark charged £93 admin plus £53.15 per space per day when we checked, so a single space for one day was £146.15. Some councils waive part of the fee for a home move. Our parking suspension finder lists the rules, notice and fees for 31 London councils, and parking suspensions for moving day explains how to apply.

For a small job, a suspension can cost more than it saves. If the van can stop on a single yellow line or in a loading bay close to the door, that is often enough. Tell us what the street is like and we will say whether one is worth it.

Congestion Charge, ULEZ and tolls

• Congestion Charge. If either address is inside the zone during charging hours, the charge is added as its own line in your quote. TfL charges £18 a day when paid on the day or in advance. Charging hours are 07:00 to 18:00 on weekdays and 12:00 to 18:00 at weekends and on bank holidays
• ULEZ. Our vans meet the ULEZ standard, so no ULEZ charge is ever added. If you are comparing a quote from someone else, ask whether their van meets it, because a van that does not pays TfL £12.50 a day
• Tolls. A toll on the route, such as the Dartford Crossing, is added at cost as its own line

London road charges for moving day has the full detail, including red routes and the Low Emission Zone.

Evenings, Sundays and waiting

• Evenings add 15% to the hourly rate. Two movers in the Small Transit (SWB) become £86.25 an hour
• Sundays and bank holidays add 20%, making the same crew £90 an hour
• Waiting time is £40 per crew member per hour, for example while keys are released at the new address
• Short notice costs nothing extra. A small job booked by 2pm can often be done the same day, subject to a free van

Saturdays carry no surcharge on our rate card. If your dates are flexible, a weekday daytime slot is the cheapest way to book the same job.

It helps to know what the wider market charges. Compare The Man and Van, a London comparison site, published typical London rates in March 2026 that ran from £35 to £82 an hour. Its examples were £35 an hour for a small van where the customer does the loading, £46 for a medium van with the driver helping, £52 for a large van with the driver helping, and £82 for a Luton van with the driver and one helper.

Our rates are higher than those averages: £55 for a driver alone and £100 for a Luton Box Van with two movers. The differences are worth understanding, because they also explain why two quotes for the same move can be far apart.

• Who does the loading. The cheapest market rate assumes you load the van yourself. Our driver-only rate includes a driver who loads and carries
• Who the people are. Some man and van services are one owner-driver, or a marketplace passing jobs to independent drivers. Everyone on our jobs is employed by us
• What cover is in place. Goods in Transit and Public Liability cover come with every one of our moves, not as an add-on
• What is included in the hours. Check whether the quote's clock starts at your door or at the driver's base, how it is rounded, and whether mileage is extra
• What the van is. A small van, a long-wheelbase van and a Luton van carry very different loads, and a lower hourly rate on a smaller van can mean a second trip

None of this makes a cheaper quote wrong. For a light load you can help with, a lower-rate owner-driver may be exactly right. The point is to compare the total for the same van, the same people and the same hours, not the headline rate.

Before our current rate card, we priced small London jobs as a fixed time slot. These are real man and van bookings from our records, anonymised to the area. The prices are what customers paid at the time, under that earlier pricing, so read them for the time and crew small London jobs needed, not as today's rates.

The pattern is consistent. Single items and small loads with a driver were booked for up to two hours. Flat moves with two people were booked for up to three. Across London, a small job rarely needs more than the minimum plus an hour, as long as everything is packed and the access is known in advance.

The alternative to a man and van is hiring a van and driving it yourself. GOV.UK confirms that a standard car licence lets you drive a van up to 3,500kg, which covers the vans most hire companies rent for home moves. GOV.UK also says that anyone who drives a van for business for more than 4 hours a day must follow the Great Britain domestic drivers' hours rules, which is one reason professional crews plan long days carefully.

A self-drive van can be cheaper for a light load, but the hire price is only part of it. You also pay for fuel, any extra insurance excess cover, your own time, and the Congestion Charge or ULEZ if the hire van does not meet the standard. You do all the lifting, find the parking, and return the van on time. For a studio with a lot of boxes and helpful friends, it can work. For a sofa down three flights of stairs, it rarely saves money once you count the risk.

Because you pay for time, everything you do before the van arrives saves money. These are the things that make the biggest difference on a London job.

• Be packed and sealed before the team arrives. Packing on the day is the most common reason small jobs run over
• Take beds and flat-pack furniture apart, or ask us to. Dismantling on the day uses paid time; booked in advance, it is priced per item
• Stack everything near the door. Boxes on the ground floor or in the hallway save trips up and down stairs
• Sort the parking. Find out where the van can stop at both ends, and apply for a suspension if the street needs one
• Book the lift. If your building has a lift, reserve it and check that the large items fit
• Have keys ready at the new address. Waiting for keys is charged at the waiting rate
• Measure the big items. A sofa that will not go through a door costs time while it is solved on the day
• Give an honest inventory. Items that appear on the day are the main cause of overtime

For more ways to cut the cost of a whole move, see the cheapest way to move house in London.

Being packed is the single biggest saving, and it is easier to get right when you have seen it done. This short video from a home improvement retailer walks through choosing box sizes and packing a wardrobe.

How to Pack for a Move

Whichever van and crew you book, from a driver alone to four movers, every move with us includes the same basics:

• Goods in Transit cover. Included on every move, not sold as an add-on.
• Public Liability cover. In place on every job, at home or at work.
• Our own crew. Every mover is employed by AFS. We never pass your move to a subcontractor.
• One named coordinator. Your single point of contact, from the quote to the last box.

Packing materials are not included in the hourly rate. The crew brings what the job needs, and the materials are itemised in your quote.

If your move is bigger than a few rooms, start from our house removals in London page, which covers whole homes with the same rate card. For a small load, the man and van in London page lists every van with its driver-only and two-mover rates. Either way, the quote shows every number in this guide for your own move, and the London house removals team can suggest the right van and crew if you are unsure.