Your 'On Trip with Uber' Hub

We recognise that the last few years have been difficult financially for many people, drivers included.

It is in all our interests for Drivers on Uber to be earning well. By maximising the number of riders taking trips with Uber, we provide earnings opportunities for drivers and can continue to provide a reliable service in cities across the UK. We regularly review pricing across the UK, considering relevant local factors, such as competitor pricing, as well as market dynamics, including the price sensitivity of riders in each city.

We do increase prices where this can benefit both drivers and riders – for example, if a higher price during a peak hour would encourage more drivers to accept a trip and deliver a better experience to riders with shorter wait times, then the price will be increased. Our peak hour pricing offered across the week does just that – increases prices during periods of higher demand to reflect a greater need for drivers to complete trips with Uber.

But it’s important to say that higher prices do not always lead to higher earnings. In fact in some situations, higher prices have the opposite effect. At Uber, we have a lot of data that helps us determine the likelihood of a rider booking a trip based on the upfront rider fare. For example, a higher rider price could result in the rider closing the Uber app and finding an alternate method of transportation.

We have seen a number of examples of trips offered to drivers that might not be attractive for a variety of reasons. For example, travelling long distances outside of the city for a short, minimum fare journey. Examples help our team focus on common issues for drivers. Thank you for sharing these examples, which we will take away to be analysed and will look to make improvements where we believe it will improve both the rider and driver experience.

We understand that spending any amount of time without access to your Driver account can be a stressful and troubling situation. We are working hard to minimise any unnecessary time offline and will only place an account on a temporary hold, or worst case, deactivate a driver’s account where we believe it is important for the safety riders and drivers who use the Uber app.

Safety is a top priority for us. When Uber receives a serious complaint about a driver or rider, we will take this information very seriously. It is both a business priority and a regulatory obligation to investigate serious complaints, and depending on the severity of the report, we may need to place an account on temporary hold while we investigate. Where applicable and in the case of counter allegations, we will also place account holds on the relevant rider account at the same time while we carry out the investigation.

When investigating complaints, we look at a range of relevant data and supporting evidence, not just the rider’s allegation. We will look at the account history for both the rider and the driver, as well as incident-related information that may be available to us, for example GPS location data. If a driver has CCTV fitted in their vehicle, we will make a request for a relevant window of footage to further aid our investigation.

Permanent account deactivations do not happen frequently, but in the rare scenarios they do, we understand that this is something that can have a significant impact on drivers and their livelihoods. Over the last three years we have worked with GMB Union to improve transparency within the account hold and deactivations process. Today, through the in-app Review Centre drivers can submit a request to have a second review of their account deactivation completed by a dedicated team of experts who will review the specific circumstances of the claim.

If you would like to know more, listen to our ‘Behind the Wheel’ episode on ‘Understanding Account Holds & Deactivations’ or check out the Deactivations webpage.

As a reminder, all drivers will now see their estimated holiday pay due to be received for each trip on the upfront offer card.

We have heard from many drivers that there was a preference to continue to separate holiday pay and individual trip prices, and that the length of time available to view the upfront offer card can make it challenging to quickly determine the individual trip price for the trip. We improved the offer card by adding a line underneath your upfront price, which shows the original upfront price as well as the estimated amount of holiday pay that has been included for that individual trip. We are exploring solutions to put more control into the hands of drivers in relation to their earnings components, including the possibility of greater visibility over weekly holiday pay amounts to be able to put the money away for a later date.

It is worth clarifying that the change made to the payment of holiday pay on every trip, did not change any of the following:

• Your legal entitlement to holiday pay as a Worker at the rate of 12.07% of applicable earnings (after expenses at the HMRC rate)
• The amount of holiday pay you will receive on a weekly basis - if we estimate incorrectly on the trip level, Uber will apply a top up at the end of the week
• Trip pricing in relation to the amount of holiday pay being paid to drivers

We understand that waiting for your rider can be frustrating and is something you may experience on a regular basis. Cancellation fees and the time at which you can cancel to receive a cancellation fee are designed to fairly compensate drivers for the time they need to wait, whilst ensuring that we make an allowance for a few minutes delay in riders arrival at the pickup point. We will review specific locations or times where we may need to make adjustments to ensure we can find a good balance between driver and rider experience.

Learn more about cancellation fee thresholds.

Ratings were a popular topic at the ‘On trip with Uber’ events in 2023 and 2024. We know that ratings are something that drivers take very seriously and take a lot of pride in - it highlights the hard work all of you put in every day to offer an exceptional level of service.

As a reminder, your driver rating is an average of your last 500 rated trips. We think anonymity is important, both for drivers and for riders, to ensure people are able to fairly rate a journey without any fear of repercussion. However, to encourage a fair rating, it is compulsory for all riders to give a reason for any score lower than 5 stars. We will feed back this reason to you via the Driver app - if you visit the Pro Hub and click on your ratings you will see your scores and explanations there. If you rate a rider 1 star you won’t be matched to that rider again.

We are looking into a number of options to help improve the experience of ratings for both drivers and riders. For example, in 2023 we introduced ‘Ratings Protection’ that is designed to:

• Remove 1* ratings for reasons that are outside of your control, such as the suggested route, the price or traffic.
• Remove 1* ratings from Riders who show a pattern of repeatedly giving low ratings.
• Let you know when we have removed a 1* rating for either of these reasons through a message in your Driver inbox.

We will continue to investigate solutions to keep the system fair and equitable for everyone. Please note that a driver’s star rating does not determine which UberX trips they are offered.