The UK Courier Industry: From Competition to Cartel

The Great Consolidation

The UK courier industry has undergone a dramatic transformation over the past decade. What was once a competitive landscape with multiple players fighting for business has become an oligopoly where the remaining few dominate through convenience rather than quality.

Companies like ANC, TNT, CityLink, and Hermes have disappeared from the UK market, either through acquisition, bankruptcy, or simply withdrawing from the country. This consolidation has left consumers and businesses with a stark choice: Royal Mail (which many still sarcastically call "Parcelforce" despite the rebrand), UPS, DPD, Yodel, and Evri.

Amazon deserves special mention in this landscape, though with an important caveat: Amazon only delivers Amazon orders, not packages from other companies. Despite once being the leader in logistics excellence, Amazon has experienced a significant decline in service quality over recent years, largely due to schemes like Amazon Flex and similar initiatives that rely on inexperienced individuals working as contractors rather than Amazon's own professional delivery fleet.

While these companies were never perfect, there was once a genuine effort to provide reliable service. Today, that commitment to service excellence is largely a thing of the past, replaced by a "good enough" mentality that prioritises volume over value.

Royal Mail's Phoenix Rise

Perhaps the most surprising development has been Royal Mail's resurgence in the parcel delivery market. Having struggled for years with declining letter volumes, the company has found new life in parcel delivery, capitalising on the void left by competitors and growing customer frustration with the remaining players.

Royal Mail's strategy has been brilliant in its simplicity: position themselves as the reliable alternative to the increasingly unreliable private couriers. Their extensive network, which was once seen as a burden, has become their greatest asset in an era where other couriers struggle with basic delivery requirements.

The irony is not lost on industry observers that the postal service everyone complained about is now the most reliable option for package delivery, while the companies that promised better service have become the ones customers actively avoid.

This perception is backed by hard data. A Citizens Advice survey conducted in 2025 ranked the remaining courier services across three critical metrics:

These star ratings reveal the stark reality of the courier market. Royal Mail leads in trust with 4.0 stars, while Yodel languishes at the bottom across all metrics. DPD's particularly poor customer service rating of just 2.1 stars reflects the daily frustrations experienced by businesses across the UK.

The DPD Disaster

Among the remaining couriers, DPD has distinguished itself through consistently poor service that borders on professional negligence. Their operational model appears designed to fail: attempting deliveries to business addresses during hours when those businesses are closed, then immediately routing packages to post offices for collection.

We had to send the same package via same-day motorbike courier at a cost of £150 and left the supplier to fight with DPD to get it back, which I think they eventually did. We will certainly never use them again.

DPD's operational failures extend beyond timing issues to basic delivery procedures. Despite our goods inwards area being clearly marked with large signs stating that we accept full responsibility for any packages left there, and despite there usually being numerous packages already deposited by other couriers that day, DPD drivers will buzz their way in, navigate to the clearly signed goods inwards area, arrive at the delivery bay, look directly at the sign, and then take the package away again.

This behaviour is particularly frustrating because every other courier service understands and respects our goods inwards procedure. No other courier has difficulty delivering to this area, yet DPD consistently fails to follow the clear instructions right in front of them. We cannot afford to have someone standing at the goods inwards area all day waiting for packages, nor should any business need to provide such basic hand-holding for a delivery service.

The Evri Problem

Formerly known as Hermes, Evri has inherited the budget courier reputation with all its associated problems. Their service is characterised by regular package losses, inconsistent delivery times, and a complete lack of accountability when things go wrong.

The company regularly "loses" deliveries that simply disappear from their tracking system, never to be seen again. When customers complain, the standard response is a form letter acknowledging the loss while providing no compensation or meaningful investigation into what happened to the package.

Evri's business model seems to rely on volume over value, accepting that a certain percentage of packages will never reach their destination while focusing on moving as many parcels as possible through their network.

Yodel: The Budget Hermes

Yodel occupies the space where Hermes once sat, offering budget delivery services with correspondingly low expectations. Customers have learned to expect poor service and plan accordingly, making Yodel suitable only for non-urgent deliveries where loss or damage is not critical.

The company has attempted to improve their reputation through various initiatives, but the fundamental problem remains: their business model cannot support premium service levels while maintaining their competitive pricing structure.

UPS: The Last Premium Player

With DHL having rebranded their UK operations as Evri, UPS remains the only premium courier service available in the UK market. They charge appropriately for this status, and their service generally reflects the higher price point.

However, even UPS has not been immune to the industry-wide decline in accountability. While their delivery success rate remains high, they have adopted the industry standard of accepting no responsibility for damaged goods or failed deliveries, operating on the principle that they will "do their best" but provide no guarantees.

The Accountability Crisis

The fundamental problem facing the UK courier industry is the complete breakdown of accountability. Couriers have successfully positioned themselves as transport companies rather than delivery services, meaning they accept no responsibility for actually delivering packages or delivering them in usable condition.

When you're sending a £50,000 server to a critical customer, the response "we'll do our best, but no guarantees" is simply unacceptable. Yet this has become the industry standard, with all major couriers operating under terms and conditions that effectively absolve them of responsibility for their core service.

This lack of accountability creates a two-tier system where customers either accept the risk or find alternative solutions. For businesses dealing with high-value equipment, this has forced the development of specialised courier services that provide the accountability and reliability that the major players no longer offer.

GEN's Response

At GEN, we reached a breaking point with the courier industry's failure to provide reliable service. The combination of consolidated market power, declining service quality, and complete lack of accountability meant we could no longer trust our critical deliveries to the major players.

As a result, we now employ our own courier for high-value and urgent deliveries. This service provides the accountability that the major couriers have abandoned, with direct communication, guaranteed delivery windows, and full responsibility for the package from pickup to delivery even if at a significant premium.

Each high value delivery we make costs us about £70, but compared to the cost of suing a courier for a £50K server that they lost, its pocket change.

How We Got Here

The consolidation of the UK courier industry was driven by several factors: economic pressures, the rise of e-commerce changing delivery patterns, and the natural tendency of capital to concentrate market power. However, the solution to these pressures has not been improved efficiency or better service, but rather a race to the bottom in terms of service quality.

The remaining players have discovered that customers have little choice but to accept poor service, creating a perverse incentive structure where service quality improvements would cost money but generate little additional business since customers cannot easily switch providers.

The Fair Pay Crisis

One of the most significant factors driving the decline in courier service quality has been the systematic move away from employee-based salary models to contractor-based pay-per-delivery systems. This transformation has fundamentally altered the economics of delivery work and created conditions where delivery agents are frequently paid below the minimum wage.

Under the traditional salary model, couriers were employees with fixed hours, guaranteed pay, and incentives to provide good service. They had time to locate addresses carefully, wait for recipients, and handle packages with care. The company's reputation was directly tied to their performance, creating alignment between employee interests and customer service.

The contractor model operates entirely differently. Couriers are classified as self-employed independent contractors, paid only for completed deliveries. This creates a system where time is money, and every minute spent locating an address, waiting for a response, or handling packages carefully is time not earning income. When delivery agents find themselves earning below minimum wage after accounting for vehicle costs, fuel, insurance, and the time involved, quality service becomes economically impossible.

Consider the mathematics: if a courier receives £1.50 per delivery and can complete 15 deliveries per hour, they earn £22.50 per hour. However, this assumes perfect conditions with no time wasted on difficult addresses, unsuccessful delivery attempts, or customer service. When factoring in the 15-20 minutes spent on each unsuccessful delivery attempt, plus travel time between addresses, the effective hourly rate frequently drops below £8.00, well below the minimum wage.

When delivery agents are financially incentivised to complete as many deliveries as possible in the shortest time, cutting corners becomes economically rational. Packages get left in inappropriate locations, delivery attempts become perfunctory, and customer service suffers. The business model has transformed couriers from service professionals into piece-rate workers whose primary motivation is volume rather than quality.

This pay structure also creates high staff turnover, as delivery agents quickly realise that the economics don't work. New, inexperienced drivers constantly replace those who leave, perpetuating a cycle of poor service where training and relationship-building are impossible when staff turnover exceeds 100% annually.

The irony is that these cost-cutting measures designed to improve profitability actually destroy the very thing that makes delivery services valuable: reliability and accountability. A system that pays below minimum wage cannot attract or retain quality staff, cannot provide adequate training, and cannot incentivise good service when good service conflicts with earning a living wage.

Government deregulation and the classification of courier drivers as self-employed has further reduced costs while simultaneously reducing service quality, creating a system where the only sustainable business model is high volume with low margins and minimal service commitments.

Conclusion

The UK courier industry has transformed from a competitive market into an oligopoly that prioritises profit over service. The disappearance of smaller competitors has left customers with limited choices, while the remaining players have reduced accountability to the point where basic delivery reliability is no longer guaranteed.

This situation is not inevitable but rather the result of specific business decisions and market structures. The solution lies in creating alternatives that prioritise service quality and accountability, whether through regulatory intervention, market innovation, or businesses developing their own delivery capabilities.

Until the major couriers recognise that reliable service is a competitive advantage rather than a cost centre, the industry will continue to operate as a cartel that extracts value from customers while providing minimal service in return. The customers who suffer are not just individuals waiting for parcels, but businesses whose operations depend on reliable supply chains and whose reputations are damaged by courier failures.