It’s taken Deliveroo more than a decade to do it, but this month, the company made an annual profit for the first time. This might come as a surprise. If you live in London, you probably see one of the 15,000 or so couriers like me zooming past you several times a day. And with Covid triggering a takeaway boom five years ago, you’d reasonably assume that these apps are raking it in.

But while companies such as Deliveroo and Uber have been pumped full of cash by investors, many have been losing money year after year, as they tried to squeeze competition out of the market. Twelve years into its existence, Deliveroo has finally made good on the promise to its investors and turned into a moneymaker, recording a £3m profit.

Want to know how they’ve done it? I’m proud to tell you that it’s all down to me – and thousands of other riders like me. I’ve worked for Deliveroo for much of its existence, and in that time I’ve gone from being a recognised employee with full rights on a fixed wage to being technically self-employed with no rights, and my real-term, take-home pay squashed.

I’ve been knocked off my bike eight times since I started as a courier in 2016. After my worst collision, in 2020, I couldn’t........

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