Every Uber driver in the UK will be eligible for 20 hours of free childcare under a new scheme intended to get more women driving taxis.
They will be able to use the allowance through a nannying and babysitting app for the rest of 2025.
“We really, really would like to attract more female drivers onto the Uber platform,” said Uber UK General Manager Andrew Brem.
But the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), which represents drivers, said “anyone can see through” what it called a “cynical PR stunt”.
“If Uber really wanted to support families, they would pay drivers enough money so that they could afford time off to be with their children,” it told the BBC in a statement.
“Instead Uber’s insultingly low fees force drivers to spend so long on the roads that in many cases relationships rupture and families are broken up,” it added.
Uber said it trialled free childcare with 1,000 drivers and had an overwhelmingly positive response – with 96% of those who took part saying it made it easier to take on work.
Now, the scheme will be extended to the more than 100,000 Uber drivers in the UK.
“Like some other occupations, [Uber driving] happens to be predominantly male – that’s not something that we’d like,” Mr Brem told BBC News.
He expects the free childcare to initially be used by existing drivers rather than new ones, “but it’s more, I think, to get drivers into the habit of doing this.”
He adds: “By testing it at no cost, you have the experience, and you see the ease of getting childcare through this particular route.”
Uber UK will keep the scheme open for the rest of the year and then “see how it goes,” in terms of extending it further, Mr Brem said.
The firm will hope the move may help assuage drivers who have taken strike action in recent months over what they say is unfair pay.
In October, Uber drivers in Glasgow told the BBC their wages had fallen in 2024, despite price increases being passed on to customers.
Then in January, striking drivers said they were working “too many hours” despite having families at home.
“I haven’t yet come across an employee survey, including our own, where people don’t say that they want to earn more,” said Mr Brem.
“I do understand that our main role in helping them more, though, is to is to keep the platform super busy, so our focus is on actually growth of demand,” he said.
Mr Brem said drivers could now see a weekly breakdown of how much money they earned compared to how much of the fare Uber takes.
He added that, coming out of lockdowns, there was a period of “unusually higher earnings” for drivers, as demand outstripped supply of available rides.
“We’re more in a sort of normal situation now, but that probably affects some of the experiences that [drivers] have had,” he says.
Uber has also highlighted the experience of one mother of three who participated in its childcare pilot and said it had been a “massive boost”.
Tania Naseer said she used the childcare during work and also to go out with friends.
“As a mother, it’s important for me to have my own batteries charged in order to be there for my children,” she told BBC News.
“Now, I can hire a sitter for the weekend and then I can work the weekend, and they are the busiest hours.”
She added: “Ideally, yes, a pay rise would be great, but right now it seems to be working how it is.”
The childcare will be offered through a babysitting and nannying app called Bubble, which matches parents with childminders.
Drivers can use the free hours whenever they want, not just when they are working for Uber.
Mr Brem says he hopes drivers using the childcare scheme will “recognise this is a valuable thing that they wish to carry on themselves” after they have used their free hours.
