Taxis Sheffield - from Mercury Taxis Sheffield

If you are interested in becoming a licensed taxi driver then there are quite a few important stages that you must go through first of all. For full guidance and assistance of how this should be done then please click here and the City Council's Licensing Department's website will guide you through a step by step guide on how you can become a taxi driver in Sheffield, and hopefully with Mercury Taxis.

There are several very important stages that you must go through to become a fully licensed taxi driver, you cannot just get into a car and begin taxi driving. The steps are as follows –

1 – Complete a basic application form at the Licensing Department - this will cost you £75 to make the initial application.  You will then automatically get booked onto a Maths & English assessment, once you have achieved the correct level of marks in this assessment you will then be given a date for a knowledge test. This will test you on your knowledge of Sheffield's roads and places of interest in and around our City.  

2 – After you have successfully completed this stage, you can then go ahead and book a driving test. The fee for the driving test itself - £55 - has to be paid at this stage.  

3 – Once you have passed your driving test you can then make a full application for a Private Hire & Hackney Carriage Taxi Licence. The cost for this application is £210 and inclu ded in this price is a full CRB check by South Yorkshire Police, as well as a DVLA check. This will provide the Licensing Department with full details on your criminal record, if you have one, as well as your driving history. Once these details have come back they will be thoroughly checked by the Licensing Department. 

4 – In the meantime you will be given a date for a medical examination with the City Council’s appointed Doctor and this will cost £55.

After all your relevant checks have come back satisfactory and you have passed your medical then you will be granted a 'badge' by the Licensing Department. The total cost for this, at the moment, is £395 and, whilst we are aware that this is a lot of money, we are also fully aware as a company of our duty to both customers and drivers alike that we have to provide them with the best possible service and drivers. 

To this end Mercury Taxis are always on the lookout for new professional taxi drivers and, so long as you are prepared to work hard, even though the hours can be a little bit unsociable at times, then the rewards can be lucrative. When a driver first starts work with us he or she is always given one weeks free radio rent. This is because we know that you are not simply going to get into a car and earn lots of money straight away, there is more to taxi driving then just driving around the City and picking up fares. So to help all new drivers get started we give each and everyone a helping hand. Part of this is to provide a full in-car training session to all new drivers with our new data head systems. All of our managers are then on hand to help and assist all new drivers along the way with any problems that they may have, in particular during their early weeks with us. We tend to find that most new drivers take at least two to three weeks to settle in and find their way around, not only Sheffield, but also some of our more difficult pick-ups and drop offs, hence the reason why we allow all new drivers the maximum assistance possible in their early days with us.

Radio rents are currently charged at £94 per week for a full-time radio and £66 for a part-time radio, whilst we can provide fleet insurance cover at a cost of £45 per week. Please note that we are only able to provide fully comprehensive insurance through our company fleet policy for drivers who work on our company. We are also able to provide fully licensed vehicles to rent out at a cost between £90 and £100 per week.

If you have any questions whatsoever about becoming a taxi driver with our company then please do not hesitate to give any one of our managers a call at our offices on 0114 2662 662 and they will be more than pleased to talk you about these processes over the telephone.