Tried my hand at this a couple of years ago…Got myself work running through a freight forwarder, bought a 6 month old Sprinter LWB van (£17K + VAT), various insurances ect and I was ready.
It was hard graft with not a lot of sleep but the money was quite reasonable (made enough to pay off loan on van in 6 months).
Regular run was to load at Huddersfield at 4pm and tip by 8am next morning in Turin, no stopping apart from fuel and coffee, then reload either Milan (if lucky) or upto Wasserburg for a tip in Cardiff next morning.
A number of times I was away from home for upto 2 weeks, also you were dog tired most of the time. Best run of work I had (and this was one load after another) was Northampton to Pisa, then Milan to Warwick, then Peckham to Warsaw, Munich to Wrexham, then Middleton (Manchester) to Stockholm (although I didn’t get a backload from this run.
I only packed it in because I was running myself ragged also my homelife was virtually non existant and that wasn’t how I envisaged been self employed as been as I was hoping to have some control over my life. The problem was, was if you turned down a job for whatever reason then they wouldn’t give you any for a week to teach you a lesson.
However, if I was single I would consider doing it again as you get to see some cracking sights…but everyone to their own I suppose, just glad I’ve got a cushy job doing night trunks now.
Thanks Flemo,I saw that ad the other day,and I’ve sent my CV to them.Not holding my breath though,reading the job spec,I’m never seen such a load of BS in my life 
It must have taken some HR bod months to write 
I only want to drive a lorry FFS 
as others have said this is the worst time time to even think about getting in to the courier game. yes there is work about last friday i had 15 alerts from cx mobile. though there is work about its very scarce a the moment and you wont even make you tax bill at the moment as evirtually every load is a backload as other couriers companies try to get work moved at usually stupid prices
i did get out of the job late last year and have kept my cx membership as a back up if and when things pickup i may look at it again i may not