The taxi (or) hackney and private hire industry includes hackney operation and rental of private cars via an operator, for example private hire vehicles or chauffeur driven vehicles.  Hackney carriages can either be hailed in the street, pre-booked or be available at taxi ranks.  Private hire vehicles cannot be hailed in the street and can only be booked by phone or in person.  Every year hackney carriages must re-apply for their licence.  Sole traders are not included in certain national data sets so numbers are difficult to estimate.

There is an estimated 171,000 working in the industry, however the actual number of licences issued was around 290,000 in 2005.  Recruitment difficulties are the result of a shortage of applicants with the right skills and are a particular problem in England and Wales.

Workforce statistics:

• 22% of the workforce are employed part-time
• a high proportion of self-employed people are in the workforce
• a high proportion of the workforce have few or no qualifications
• 12% of the workforce are female
• 22% of the workforce are from minority ethnic groups
• the average age of the workforce is 46.6 years
• 39% of the workforce have an NVQ Level 2 or higher
• a high proportion of the workforce have no qualifications

Source: Data from GoSkills 2007, LMI Industry fact sheets 2006 and GoSkills Skills Needs Assessment (stage 1) sector summary 2006a