I became a woman with a van and now make £2k a month working part-time

A SAVVY woman is bucking the trend in a side hustle dominated by men – and even earns enough to pay all her bills.

Hannah Crawford, 28, set up a female-only removals company in March this year – despite the ‘man with a van’ stereotype for removals businesses.

Hannah says she has been surprised by her success – but adds that there still needs to be more encouragement for women getting into trades.

Hannah’s clients are predominantly women, and she says she charges less than a traditional moving company.

Hannah was originally a theatre producer, working on the UK and Ireland tour of Diary of a CEO Live! with Steven Bartlett and various Edinburgh Fringe productions among others.

But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, theatres across the country shut and Hannah had to rethink things.

“All of a sudden, my entire calendar of work for the year went out the window,” she says.

She transitioned into business coaching, which she still does four years on.

But at the beginning of 2025, she needed a change.

Hannah says: “I love my job but it could be really mentally taxing through the day, and I would find that I was mentally exhausted but physically I hadn’t moved.

“I wanted something that was going to get me out of the house.”

Her background in the theatre world meant she had driven vans before to transport set pieces and props for shows.

Being practically minded and good under pressure, she decided to give house removals a go.

“I already had a car in London so I thought I am just going to write a couple of Facebook posts and tell people who I am,” says Hannah.

“I thought it would be a novelty to have a woman doing that instead of a man as something a little bit different, but I didn’t realise that the response would be insane.”

What began as a side hustle now takes up the majority of her time – and it pays on average £2,000 a month.

She books three or four removals per week and has condensed her coaching clients into one and a half days a week.

Hannah says that her removal business now makes enough each month to cover all her living expenses in Hampstead, north London.

“Coaching is still my bread and butter and that’s my formal business and that’s what I want to do long-term,” she says. 

“There’s definitely going to be a day when hiring a van in the cold at 7am on a London morning and driving to Manchester isn’t going to be appealing anymore. 

“I know that will happen one day, but right now it’s still fun!”

The vast majority of Hannah’s clients still come from Facebook and word of mouth. 

But Hannah now also has a website and a Google business profile to gather reviews.

She does a lot of moves in and around London, but has also travelled all across the country for clients – and has even helped someone move to France.

“In the past week I’ve been to Bath, I’ve been to Leighton Buzzard and I was in Worthing a few days ago,” she says.

“I have quoted for jobs to Nice in the south of France, to Bruges and to Budapest. I will go anywhere – it just depends on whether it is viable.”

Hannah focuses her efforts on female clients, and adds that she didn’t realise just how important it would be to other women to have somebody helping them move who didn’t feel intimidating.

“I’ve had people who just wanted to get out of a difficult flatmate situation, but also people who had experienced domestic abuse and emotional abuse from narcissistic partners,” she says.

“I’ve had people who wanted to go and pick up stuff from their ex and they felt so much more comfortable with me rather than a strange man in a van. 

“I’ve had single mums who live alone and they didn’t want a strange man with a van knowing their mum’s address.”

Hannah adds that the LGBT community also makes a significant proportion of her clients.

Earlier this year, she helped a mother move after the latter had been through a custody battle for her daughter with her abusive ex-partner. 

The mother needed to pick up the last of her things from the house whilst her ex-partner had a lot of his friends there.

She told Hannah her ex wasn’t dangerous, but that she felt intimidated going there alone, so Hannah helped the mother and daughter move out.

“That case was really special to be able to help someone out and to be able to get her in a safe place and her kid in a safe place,” she said.

“It turned what could have been a really awful day that could have set her back months into a nice day, and the start of a new chapter instead of something debilitating.”

Hannah says she hopes to see more training opportunities for women to get into trades, because more women than ever want to be able to book somebody they can trust.

Research from tradespeople search platform My Local Toolbox highlights the increased demand in recent years. 

Searches for ‘lady plumber near me’ are up 450%, lady painter and decorator up 125% and searches for female carpenters are up 100%.

A Federation of Master Builders poll found that 38% of London homeowners felt more positive about hiring a tradeswoman than a male equivalent.

And 61% of those in the poll said that a woman would be more respectful of their home.

“Quite often when people try to book me and I’m busy, they’ll say to me can you recommend anyone else that does this,” she says. 

“I’ll say honestly if you’re looking for another woman I genuinely don’t know, but the minute that I do I will let you know.

“I’m sure there are plenty of women who do this stuff, but they are certainly difficult to find and they’re certainly still in the minority.”

But being in the minority of female removers isn’t stopping Hannah.

“It can be really intimidating to book men that you don’t know to come and help you do tasks that women are just as capable of achieving.

“I mean, I can’t lift an entire sofa by myself but if I’ve got a trolley and a couple of straps, I could probably achieve it. 

“Literally apart from that the rest of what I do is perfectly achievable with my kind of lady arms as it would be with male ones!”