In-house vs outsourced vehicle logistics: which should a dealer group choose?

Short answer: for most UK dealer groups, the cheapest setup is an in-house core with transport providers on the edges. Your own drivers take the short, dense, repeatable inter-branch work; providers take long single moves, peaks and multi-car transporter loads. Whether that in-house core beats outsourcing depends less on driver wages than on how many of your drivers' miles are driven empty, and that part is a planning problem you can fix.

That isn't a hedge. Groups usually get the split wrong because transport is planned site by site, so nobody sees the true cost of either model. Each model wins on different kinds of work, and where the line falls depends on your site network, your volume and how well your in-house drivers are planned. Empty miles between jobs and back to base are what make an in-house operation look expensive per loaded mile, and they're the part you can plan out.

This guide compares the two models on cost per move and per mile, sets out the honest trade-offs of each, and ends with a decision model you can apply to your own volume, geography and site network.

How do UK dealer groups actually move their cars today?

Most already run a hybrid: their own drivers on some work, transport providers on the rest, and often subcontracted moves placed directly with a 3PL.

So the real question for most groups is where to draw the line between the two, and whether the in-house side of that line is running efficiently. Groups that treat it as a yes/no decision tend to either overload a small in-house team or pay provider rates for short local hops their own drivers could chain together.

Is it cheaper to run your own drivers or use a transport provider?

On a headline per-mile basis, transport providers often look cheaper. That comparison may be real, but it isn't like-for-like, and reading it at face value leads groups to the wrong decision.

Most groups work out their in-house cost per loaded mile. Every empty mile a driver covers between jobs, and every return leg to base, is paid for but spread across the miles that actually carried a car. A provider's rate already has its own empty running priced in, and you only see the loaded leg. Compare cost per mile actually driven instead, and the gap usually narrows sharply. Much of what's left is planning, not wages.

That's the important difference between the two models. A provider's price is set by their costs and margin, and it doesn't move when you plan better. An in-house operation's cost per move falls every time a driver's run gets tighter.

What goes into the in-house cost

The biggest line is people. The National Living Wage for workers aged 21 and over has been £12.71 an hour since 1 April 2026 (GOV.UK), and that is the legal floor, not the market rate for experienced plate drivers. Paid hours include waiting at sites, handovers and the journey home, so a driver's hourly rate tells you little until you know how many jobs they complete per shift.

Trade plates add a smaller fixed cost. A 12-month trade licence costs £177 per set of plates for vehicles, and you need a Motor Trade Insurance Certificate before DVLA will issue one (GOV.UK). For a multi-site group the licences are minor; the motor trade insurance premium, fuel, chase-car or public transport costs for returns, and any transporter you run (finance, maintenance, operator licensing) carry far more weight.

Then there's planning. Someone in the central transport team matches drivers to jobs each morning, re-plans when a car isn't ready, and chases proof of delivery. That work decides how many of the paid miles end up loaded, which makes your planners the biggest lever on cost per move.

What goes into the outsourced cost

A provider's price per move bundles the driver, their insurance and plates, their empty running and their margin. You don't carry fixed headcount, and a quiet week costs you nothing. What the per-move price leaves out is the cost of managing the relationship: booking and chasing jobs across several providers, failed or late collections, damage disputes, and cars sitting on a forecourt waiting for a slot. Those land on your team and your stock days, not on the invoice.

Cost per move

Distance drives the per-move price under either model. Per-move costs therefore swing with your network. A group whose sites sit 15 miles apart has a very different answer from one moving cars 120 miles between regions, which is why the decision model below starts with geography.

How much does empty running cost an in-house operation?

Empty running is the distance a driver covers with no car on board, between jobs or on the way back to base. It's paid for in wages, fuel and time, but it never appears as its own line on a cost report. It hides inside the cost per loaded mile.

Two kinds of empty miles matter. The legs between jobs, which better sequencing can shrink, and the return to base at the end of a run, which can often be filled with a job heading the same way. Neither counts the margin lost while a car waits for a driver who is driving back empty.

This is why the in-house versus outsourced question so often gets answered on the wrong evidence. A group compares its loaded-mile cost with a provider's rate, sees the gap, and outsources. Much of that gap was empty miles that better load building and route optimisation would have removed.

If you want a rough figure for your own group, the transport cost calculator gives a starting point from your volume and distances.

What are the pros and cons of running vehicle logistics in-house?

Where in-house wins. Your own drivers are cheapest on short, frequent, predictable work: inter-branch transfers, moves to and from a central prep or compound site, and runs between sites that sit close together. A driver who can chain four or five of those jobs into one shift spreads their day cost across every car. You also control priority. When a retail customer's car needs to be at a branch by 10am, your central transport team decides, rather than waiting for a provider to fit it in. Handover quality, presentation and how drivers treat customers stay under your standards.

Where in-house costs you. Drivers are fixed cost while demand isn't. Month-end, plate-change months and auction weeks spike volume, whereas quiet weeks leave paid drivers under-used. You carry recruitment, absence cover, insurance, plates and the day-to-day fleet management that comes with them. And the economics rest on planning: if jobs are allocated by phone and whiteboard, drivers spend a large share of their day driving empty or waiting, and the cost per loaded mile climbs until outsourcing looks attractive. That usually traces back to planning tools that don't show every job and driver in one place.

Risk to watch. A small in-house team concentrates risk. Two drivers off sick in a busy week can leave cars stuck, so even strongly in-house groups usually keep a provider on call for overflow.

What are the pros and cons of outsourcing vehicle movements?

Where outsourcing wins. Providers turn transport into a variable cost. You pay per move, so peaks don't need extra headcount and quiet months don't carry idle drivers. They cover long single moves well, because their network can pick up a return job near the drop-off, which a single dealer group usually can't. Multi-car transporter loads, for example a batch of auction purchases or a stock transfer between regions, are generally cheaper with a provider than on a group's own wagon unless that wagon runs full most days.

Where outsourcing costs you. You give up control of timing. A car that needs to be at a branch tomorrow joins a provider's queue alongside other customers' work. Service quality varies between providers and between drivers, and the customer at a home delivery sees the provider's driver as your brand. Managing several providers creates its own admin: separate booking routes, separate tracking, inconsistent proof of delivery, and invoices to reconcile. And per-move pricing stays the same however well you plan, so efficiency gains go to the provider rather than to your margin.

Risk to watch. Heavy reliance on one provider leaves you exposed to their capacity in your busiest weeks. Groups that outsource most work still benefit from keeping the data on every move in one place, so they can compare cost per move between providers and spot work that would be cheaper brought back in-house.

What you commit and what you get

How do large dealer groups structure in-house and outsourced transport?

The groups that get this right split work by job type rather than by brand or region. Four job types come up again and again.

Inter-branch transfers. Stock moving between a group's own sites to match a car to a buyer or rebalance stock. This is the natural home of an in-house team, especially where sites cluster within an hour of each other and a driver can chain several moves into one shift.

Compound and prep centre runs. Groups that prep used stock centrally move cars into and out of that site constantly. Volume is high and predictable, which suits own drivers or a dedicated transporter. Some groups run this leg in-house and outsource everything else.

Retail and home deliveries. These are customer-facing, so groups weigh control of the handover against cost. EV handovers, which often include a walkthrough of charging, raise the stakes on who turns up at the door.

Auction, trade and long-distance moves. Purchases from auctions and stock bought from other regions often travel further and arrive in batches. Providers and multi-car transporters usually handle these more cheaply, because they can fill the return leg.

Dealer groups running their movements on Jigcar, including Hendy Group, which brought its vehicle logistics into one central in-house team, and Big Motoring World, plan their own drivers and book providers in AutoPlan TMS, so the split can shift week to week as volume changes.

When should a dealer group bring vehicle logistics in-house?

If you run transport across 10 or more sites, with your own plate drivers alongside third-party carriers, you're already making this decision, often without the numbers. Work through these five questions with a few months of your own movement data. Each one moves the line between in-house and outsourced work.

A useful default: start with in-house for anything short and repeatable, then outsource by exception.

1. How close together are your sites? Clustered sites favour in-house, because drivers can chain jobs without long empty legs. A network spread across regions favours providers for the long hops, with own drivers kept for local clusters.

2. How steady is your volume? If the busiest week is within reach of the quietest, fixed drivers stay busy. If month-end or plate-change months double the workload, size the in-house team for the baseline and outsource the peak.

3. How many jobs does each in-house driver complete per shift? This is the single number that decides the economics. If your drivers manage only one or two jobs a day, fix the planning before you compare yourself with a provider. If they routinely chain four or five, there may be a case for bringing more work in-house. Low numbers usually point to how work is planned, not to a problem with the in-house model itself.

4. How much of your in-house mileage is empty? Measure the miles between jobs and the return to base separately. If you don't know your own figure, you can't make a fair comparison with a provider's rate.

5. Which moves are customer-facing? Home deliveries and handovers carry brand risk. Many groups keep these in-house even where a provider would be cheaper, and accept the cost as part of the sale.

When the answer flips towards in-house: sites within an hour of each other, steady volume, a central prep site, and a central transport team with a planning system that keeps drivers loaded. When it flips towards outsourcing: long distances between sites, spiky volume, batches of auction or trade purchases, and no appetite to employ and manage drivers.

For most groups, that points to an in-house team sized for baseline volume and planned centrally, with providers booked for peaks, long hauls and auction batches. The right split will change as the group adds sites. Treating transport as part of supply chain planning for stock, and reviewing the split every quarter against cost per move rather than once at contract renewal, keeps it honest.

Who owns the split, and where does a TMS fit?

Whichever split you choose, someone has to own it. In many groups nobody does: each site books its own moves, in-house and outsourced costs sit in different places, and the split is never reviewed. The groups that get it right run transport as one central function, with a single team that sees every movement and decides which jobs stay in-house and which go to a provider.

Jigcar is an AI-native transport management system (TMS) for automotive vehicle logistics. AutoPlan TMS gives that central team every movement in one place, whether it goes to an in-house driver or a provider. The Optimiser builds driver runs to cut empty miles between jobs and back to base, and the Planning Assistant lets planners re-plan in plain language when a car isn't ready or a driver calls in sick. Drivers get jobs and capture proof of delivery in the Driver App.

That means you can run the model that suits your network, see your real cost per move on both sides of the line, and move work between them as the numbers change. See how it works on the transport platform page, read the cost benchmark for moving a car between UK dealerships, or book a 30-minute intro to model your own split.