Deliveroo will deploy pavement delivery robots in Canary Wharf, Milton Keynes, Leeds, Stockton-on-Tees and Nottingham, with the first London deliveries due within weeks. The robots are supplied by US firm Coco under an exclusive agreement, and will operate alongside more than 100,000 active riders.
Deliveroo was founded in London in 2013 by Will Shu and was acquired by US delivery group DoorDash in 2025 for £2.9bn. It is now run by Miki Kuusi, 37, who is both Deliveroo's chief executive and DoorDash's international chief executive.
The company has confirmed plans to introduce autonomous delivery robots in five UK locations, The Sunday Times reported. Four of the five are outside London.
The rollout
Canary Wharf will be first, with initial robot deliveries expected in the coming weeks. Milton Keynes, Leeds, Stockton-on-Tees and Nottingham follow.
The machines are built by Coco, a US technology company that has an exclusive arrangement with Deliveroo. They travel at walking pace on pavements, using sensors, cameras and AI-based navigation.
Financial terms of the Coco agreement were not disclosed. Deliveroo has not said how many robots it will deploy or what share of orders they are expected to carry.
Riders and robots
Deliveroo has more than 100,000 active riders in the UK, all classified as self-employed contractors. Kuusi described the robots as a complement to those couriers, not a replacement, arguing that some orders and some neighbourhoods are better suited to autonomous delivery than others.
The distinction matters for the platform's cost base. Courier pay is the largest variable cost in food delivery, and short, low-value orders are the hardest to serve profitably with a human rider.
A market already in motion
Deliveroo is not first. Just Eat already uses robots made by Starship Technologies in parts of Britain, and Starship has operated in Milton Keynes for several years.
Deliveroo is also testing drone deliveries in Dublin, and on 24 September announced a grocery delivery trial with Aldi. Taken together, the moves show DoorDash using its UK subsidiary to test automation and grocery expansion in parallel.
What comes next
The launch is the most visible operational change at Deliveroo since it left the London Stock Exchange under DoorDash's ownership.
No timetable has been given for sites beyond the first five. The pace of any wider rollout is likely to depend on how the robots perform on UK pavements through the winter months.
Original source: Business Matters, reporting The Sunday Times — https://bmmagazine.co.uk/tech/deliveroo-delivery-robots-uk-rollout/
