The salaries in this industry

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
1

are absolute crap. £31k/year, £15 p.h., even £16p.h. is crap in 2022 after real price increase of over 20% compared to last year and that’s excluding big things like homes. Is it the only job lagging behind in pay? I know people from my old warehouse (pickers, loaders etc.) who make 12-13 p.h. on days £14 p.h. nights. I’ve been looking for a new job as I’m thinking of leaving (no pay increase in 2 years, no premium for nights/weekends etc. and now rumors of doing away with fixed routes/shifts) but it’s discouraging as everything I look at will be paying less or having to work even longer hours (12+ / shift, no-no thanks)

NEver mind the amount of work is hardly overwhelming with most of the ads being agency (fake)

2

This gets spouted quite a lot on here. Although I’d like better pay and conditions as much as the next man - to say generally that we’re not paid enough is ■■■■■■■■. The average driver’s salary is equivalent to or more than most teachers, nurses, tradesman, emergency services to name a few off the top of my head.

And the fact is, no matter what anyone says, lorry driving is not a skilled job! Yes some people are more skilled at the job than others but anyone can do it, you’ve only got to look at some of the creatures doing it to realise that! Obviously some people are ■■■■ at the job but that’s the same in any industry. To be a lorry driver you have to spend a couple of grand and do a couple of weeks training - why should we be on loads more than a warehouse worker?

If you want to earn more you can do more hours, work away, work extra days, specialise - exactly the same as any other working class industry. Want to earn a great wage for reasonable hours with great benefits and job progression then go and study for years and get a genuine skill.

The people in this industry who think they should be working 40hrs, trunking, 9-5 Mon-Fri for £40000+ are just on another planet imo. Delusions of grandeur and laziness, endemic traits of a lorry driver :laughing:

3

For many of us, it isn’t a job, more a way of life.

On a good day, I can have a nice drive in the countryside, listen to whichever radio station pleases me, put my feet up for an hour when I get to my drop cos that’s how long the tank takes to pump out, park up, eat, sleep and repeat till Friday. On a bad day, get soaking wet, cold, dirty and spend the night being woken up by passing traffic, idiots in hot hatches or the pillock who didn’t switch his fridge off.

The good far outnumber the bad, and both are infinitely preferable to the drudgery and sheer boredom of a factory or office job.

4

If your not happy leave the industry. retrain for another trade with more money and better hours

5

To put it in comparison,

Me and my best friend have always been like brothers since about the age of 11. We are both 34 now. Went to the same schools, same colleges, similar upbringing.

He is a straight A kid. Smart, incredibly fit and has a degree in Bio medical chemical something or another from University of Sheffield.

He was a police officer for a few years on 30k. He had plenty of overtime opportunities which paid well but never took them because of his other life commitments etc.

Me? I’ve been working one deadbeat job to another my whole life. Self employed for about 6 years. Got into trouble with the law at 21, and then again at 31. Did 3 years in jail, criminal record for life.

Am on 33,700. I also have plenty of overtime opportunities and I plan to take them to bump up my wage.

So for me personally, am grateful I have an opportunity to earn a honest living. Because 12 months ago, I was worrying a lot where I will be and what am gonna do to provide for my family.

But more than the money, you need to be happy at what you do. If you don’t enjoy it anymore then it’s better to take a lower paid job with less stress/more happiness. Money is important, but it’s not the most important thing in life.

6

I dont think its so bad when you take into accout how much it costs to trian. For exmaple ive been in dead end jobs for most of my life from factory floors to office jobs never earning more then 22k. Im 42 now and decided to do my class 2 spent £1300 or so to do my class 2 did my online tests with a weeks revision spent 6 hours on a saturday and sunday driving then test on monday morning and Passed now got a full time job paying £28 k with good benefits and overtime opportunities and progression. If i wanted to earn 28k+ doing something else id have to study for years.

7

You’re right: it’s a great job if you want to work 80 hours per week and live in a truck. 80 x 12 = ONE GRAND, BABE!! (plus nights out money => living the dream)

If however you want to work 40 hours like a normal human being (and get paid 37.5 as anywhere I’ve worked in the last 4 years agency or FT breaks are never paid) but suppose they are so say 40 x 15(if you’re nights but more like 13-14 for days) = 520-600 p.w. or 26-30k which is a notch above a warehouse wage go to indeed and look up jobs for warehouse operatives. Even gatehouse sec. are on 10-12 p.h. with the added benefit of 4-4 for most; forklift start from 12-13 p.h.

To compare with teachers (who work like 6 months in a year or less) or police/NHS who get a ton of benefits and crazy OT rates is just different fields entirely. Also most of us truck drivers can hardly re-qualify into cops or nurses (old age etc.)

It’s nice to see people defending the low wages though justifying as ‘‘well there’s low wages elsewhere too!’’ brilliant logic…

8

Sidevalve:
For many of us, it isn’t a job, more a way of life.

On a good day, I can have a nice drive in the countryside, listen to whichever radio station pleases me, put my feet up for an hour when I get to my drop cos that’s how long the tank takes to pump out, park up, eat, sleep and repeat till Friday. On a bad day, get soaking wet, cold, dirty and spend the night being woken up by passing traffic, idiots in hot hatches or the pillock who didn’t switch his fridge off.

The good far outnumber the bad, and both are infinitely preferable to the drudgery and sheer boredom of a factory or office job.

^ That’s why it’s impossible to compare the wage for an inside type of job v the wage for being out on the road, on an hourly basis.
I couldn’t hack an inside job at any wage it takes a special mindset and respect for those who can do it.

9

ETS:
It’s nice to see people defending the low wages though justifying as ‘‘well there’s low wages elsewhere too!’’ brilliant logic…

If you’re young enough you could retrain as a CNC machine operator for around £25 per hour.If not there’s obviously a reason why you chose to stay with truck driving.
The truth is hourly rates in the industry are low because of the high levels of industry specific taxation and the fact that 1 hour in a factory seems like 2 or 3 by comparison. Possibly even more or anyone who can’t hack an inside job at any wage.

10

ETS:
It’s nice to see people defending the low wages though justifying as ‘‘well there’s low wages elsewhere too!’’ brilliant logic…

Nobody did though did they :unamused:

You are missing the point - myself, and I think others were trying to point out that it isn’t a low wage at all, it is in fact a better than average wage for the level of skill education/qualification required. Just because you want more doesn’t make it a low wage.

Tbh, your entire post smacks of entitlement. You complain that the wages are only a notch above warehouse work - newsflash - lorry driving is only a notch above warehouse work as a career.

Security are on £10-12 an hour - what is it you think we do that we deserve so much more than them? Because we spent a couple of grand on a license? They get to do 4 on 4 off? I do 4-4, why can’t you?

What is so much harder about driving a lorry than driving a forklift truck? Why do you think we are better than them?

Teachers only work 6 months a year? Ridiculous statement but if that’s what you think, go and study for 3-4 years and better yourself.

I would actually go as far as to say that 40hrs at £15 p/h is a very good wage. I would be very surprised if there was any other job outside of lorry driving that you could train for in 2 weeks and get that wage. And if there is, it would definitely involve more work than your average driver would be prepared to do.

Good for you that you don’t want to work more than 40hrs - there’s more to life than money. But if you want more money but you don’t want to work for it and you don’t want to retrain for it, you just want to be given it because you think you should be - as I said earlier - delusions of grandeur and laziness!

11

Sidevalve:
or the pillock who didn’t switch his fridge off.

I agree with most of your post mate, but I must take exception with the above ^^^.

Do you think that the fridge driver wants to sleep with that rattling away behind him all night? Not likely, but he/she is painfully aware of the potential ramifications arising from switching the fridge off, the latest salmonella scare that has affected some of the major supermarkets is just one possible outcome of switching a fridge off.

Would you shop for your meat and dairy at a supermarket that practised switching their in store fridges off at night?

12

ETS:
You’re right: it’s a great job if you want to work 80 hours per week and live in a truck. 80 x 12 = ONE GRAND, BABE!! (plus nights out money => living the dream)

If however you want to work 40 hours like a normal human being (and get paid 37.5 as anywhere I’ve worked in the last 4 years agency or FT breaks are never paid) but suppose they are so say 40 x 15(if you’re nights but more like 13-14 for days) = 520-600 p.w. or 26-30k which is a notch above a warehouse wage go to indeed and look up jobs for warehouse operatives. Even gatehouse sec. are on 10-12 p.h. with the added benefit of 4-4 for most; forklift start from 12-13 p.h.

You don’t have to work 80 hours a week or live in a truck.

It depends what you want to earn.

I do 50 or less hours a week over 5 nights on not that greatest money. Still over 700 quid a week before tax. It’s enough for me and enough hours at 50 hours a week or less whenever I get the chance. I rarely work over 10 hours a night and never work a 6th shift either. Well I did twice when they were laying an extra 100 quid bonus but that stopped. And I don’t want to work a 6th shift anyway on nights.

There are plenty of jobs I could work less hours for and normal hours like days but not for that kind of money without training for a decent amount of time to get a career with good money.

Sent from my CPH2173 using Tapatalk

13

Maybe it’s the job you’re in or the area?

See this is why I don’t get why people sneer down at supermarket work? I mean don’t get me wrong, I did the same myself until a mate took on a job and acted as my canary in the coal mine so to speak. Best thing I’ve done for a number of reasons.

Firstly at my old job they’ve had a raise and are now on £14.50 flat rate, expected to do at least 60hrs a week general haulage type work, performing miracles each and every day to get either done at a decent time or prevent being dragged into an unplanned night out. The job wasn’t difficult by any means but it was always a battle.

Now I’m on with Tesco, I mainly do trunking work, I start early but I’m done by lunchtime every day so I’m there for the kids in the afternoon this saving on childcare costs. I probably average around 50hrs a week, but could do less, and have paid breaks, no nights out. So in terms of work/life balance I’m much better off.

As for wages if you look at the advert it doesn’t look great at £14.63, but its not a flat rate and you get more for weekends or dark money, more for bank hols, more for anything over 42.5hrs and so on but if you flatten it all out (pay ÷ hours worked) my hourly rate is £19.20ish so I’m on more money now than I was for less hours than I was doing. Plus I get bonuses of which I’m expecting about £2,000 on the next payday.

I don’t particularly hammer the hours like others do, but I’m going to end up paying 40% tax on some of my earnings in this tax year for the first time in a long long time.

The point I’m making is that there are jobs where you can make money and don’t have to spill blood or tears for it. There’s precisely none of my friends who earn more than me and they all do varying jobs, from warehouse work to sales exec to site manager for a construction company.

I’m lucky that I’ve fallen on my feet, but I took a move to do something I’d always almost ‘looked down’ upon to find it.

14

toonsy:
As for wages if you look at the advert it doesn’t look great at £14.63,

Actually it does look fairly decent for days, compared to the crap advertised on indeed and the likes. I guess I’ll just have to spam-apply to everything in a 5 mile radius from me and see what lands.

15

ETS:
real price increase of over 20% compared to last year

Inflation is nowhere near 20%. Average food shop has increased just over £270 a year, barely a fiver a week.

I get paid £16.66 an hour plus shift bonus which bumps it up to just over £18/hr to sit on my arse watching the world go by, listening to the music I like, spend an hour waiting for my return trailer to be brought to the changeover or on break watching Netflix and Youtube as I do still on pay, swap trailers and drive back again. Out of my working week I get paid £83 a week to watch Netflix and £500 to listen to my favourite tunes going out for a drive watching the world go by.

There’s a load of people in this country working a lot harder in far more miserable working conditions for a lot less.

anywhere I’ve worked in the last 4 years agency or FT breaks are never paid

I can’t actually remember the last job I worked where breaks weren’t paid, agency or FT. I couldn’t even take a guess where it was and who it was for. Certainly no time in the last 20 years I can think of.

To compare with teachers (who work like 6 months in a year or less) or police/NHS who get a ton of benefits and crazy OT rates is just different fields entirely.

You too can go do those jobs if you want, all you have to do is go to university and spend three years of your life and £27,000 to get a degree then spend 5 years going up through the pay scale grades until you finally reach the wages you think are so fantastic although you may not want to given their entry pay levels are barely more than minimum wage for the hours they do. How much time and money did you spend to get your LGV licence, a few grand and a couple of weeks training?

16

the maoster:

Sidevalve:
or the pillock who didn’t switch his fridge off.

I agree with most of your post mate, but I must take exception with the above ^^^.

Do you think that the fridge driver wants to sleep with that rattling away behind him all night? Not likely, but he/she is painfully aware of the potential ramifications arising from switching the fridge off, the latest salmonella scare that has affected some of the major supermarkets is just one possible outcome of switching a fridge off.

Would you shop for your meat and dairy at a supermarket that practised switching their in store fridges off at night?

fair point; most of them don’t actually bother me but you always get the one with the raspy exhaust or loose rattling panel that out-competes the rest. And they always seem to be the ones which kick in every fifteen to twenty minutes. If my supermarket had a fridge like that I wouldn’t buy meat there, to answer your question.

17

Conor:
…the usual crapload typically found in every Connor post

Yes yes, I know you make 50 grand a year (before tax) for 32 hours/week mon-fri but 90% of the drivers out there are working crap hours (too many and or too un-sociable or downright detrimental as a ton studies have shown for nights or rotating shift patterns) for crap money. I’m not complaining (on decent ££ myself at the moment though maybe not for long) but the alternatives I see are utter rubbish excluding fuel tankers of course

ASDA day time drivers £12.02 per hour class 1 :unamused:
DHL around £13
UPS won’t even say their and job description reads like it was written by a 9 year old on fentonyl
Ocado, Royal Mail not looking for hgv drivers only for van

18

ETS:
You’re right: it’s a great job if you want to work 80 hours per week and live in a truck. 80 x 12 = ONE GRAND, BABE!! (plus nights out money => living the dream)

If however you want to work 40 hours like a normal human being…

…then you do what I did, leave your office job and go to driving, and you just do 3 days per week.

I did it in 2016 after a bit of working in the office, which I hated. Hourly wage was about the same as in the offive, but overtime was 1.5 times, so I worked Wednesday to Friday, usually about 10 to 12 hours per day and I was taking home the same money when I was doing 9-5 mon-fri in the office. And had 4 days weekends.

Note: I am not saying that drivers pay is great, it is not. But pay in many office job, especially those available without specialised education is also crap, so you can be better off by working part time as a driver.

To compare with teachers (who work like 6 months in a year or less)

Haha. You’ll be surprised how much work teachers have to do over holidays. See, if the work does not require you to clock-in in the morning and clock-out in the evening it does not mean you work less. Teachers work is not only actual teaching. It’s a lot of paperwork, checking homework and marking tests, preparing lessons and experiments (if you are science teacher for example), changing your existing lessons to adhere for every changing curriculum, taking part in conferences - both parent-teacher and school staff meetings, as well as going to educate yourself. Not to mention all those school out-of-hours activities teachers also have to engage with like school balls, school theathre shows, school excursions, school staff training and so on, and so off.

Source: My mom, grandma, auntie and two of my sisters in life are teachers, and my dad was an academic lecturer. I was supposed to be a teacher as well, but decided against it. It’s too much work for the money :wink:

or police/NHS who get a ton of benefits and crazy OT rates is just different fields entirely. Also most of us truck drivers can hardly re-qualify into cops or nurses (old age etc.)

If only truck drivers also had some unions that could stand up for their rights…

It’s nice to see people defending the low wages though justifying as ‘‘well there’s low wages elsewhere too!’’ brilliant logic…

You are absolutely right on that one. The fact that everywhere else pays crap while companies profits are skyrocketings and CEO’s become the richest people in the world, beating kings and arab sheiks shows, that this is just a systematic wage theft.

Half a century ago CEO was making like 200 times more than an average factory worker. Today it’s often 200 000 times or even more. It’s absurd.

19

if you want more money what skills have you that set you apart from all the rest ?
If you have something extra that a company can use your a better prospect than the other 100 candidates wanting the same job - lets face it if theres another 100 people looking the same job the employer can be selective , if theres nothing extra to choose from they can see whos going to be the cheapest to employ .
if you are prepared to do nights out , don’t have to be home every nigh to walk a dog / put a kid to bed / watch Eastenders then your more flexible - transport is an industry that needs flexability . What areas have you worked in ?
Silly one but for instance - can you rope and sheet ? You may never need to but its something that could be useful should the employer need to take on a strange load to keep an existing customer happy a driver with those skills is a more useful driver to have .
If you have nothing “extra” to offer how do you justify asking for a higher wage than the rest ?

20

2 weeks training and £2/3000 paid out does not mean you are a lorry driver, if you pass the tests it entitles you to a licence to drive HGVs, that’s when you start learning the job.
It takes years if you want to learn, some don’t want to and they never become skilled lorry drivers with all that entails because they have no interest in the job, we all see them every day of the week performing as expected, most of them resplendent in stitched on hivis whilst behind the wheel :smiling_imp:

Yes there are people in our industry who haven’t progressed beyond new driver standard, but for those who up their game and learn and, dare i say this, actually go out of their way to be professional drivers, it doesn’t take long before those who put some effort in get noticed * and sooner or later the opportunity to move onto better things materialises because the competition just isn’t there, those once dead mans shoes jobs really are up for grabs because even they are finding it hard to recruit the right sort.

It isn’t all ■■■■ poor pay or 80 hour weeks to make a living wage, though agreed those jobs are about and they should be treated as a stepping stone only or an emergency job to keep the wolf from the door, those sorts of jobs do not deserve the better drivers, let them enjoy the fruits of their business practice, wrecked lorries and loads and similar damage to other vehicles and anything else that gets in their way.
There is better out there, so ask yourself what can you do to get your foot in the door.

  • new recruit, young former EE chap, polite efficient friendly, takes an interest in fine tuning the way he goes about the job by asking the right questions and listening and is upping his game rapidly, he’s been the subject of very positive reports to management including from yours truly (i believe in pointing out good work above and beyond expectation. Poor workers? well i ain’t a grass and the suits get paid to run the job), he’ll do well where i work and good luck to him.