I’m looking at changing careers, I currently work for Autoglass, I’m on 20k a year with a bonus system, which I earn about 1.5 - 2 k a year on.
I already have my c class which I acquired in 2012 when I was a firefighter, although this is auto only.
Before I depart with my money for my cpc, hiab and refresher course, which will be in a manual, I wondering what I could expect to earn in the following, pallets, grab loader and building merchant, what hours are expected too.
I understand that I will earn slightly lower as I have no experience but any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I’ve tried to research it but keep getting different answers from 19k up to 27k.
Not sure if it matters but I live in Reading, Berkshire.
Can vary a lot mate, especially for someone new to it. Usually (unless you are very lucky and have a permanent job lined up) you need to build up some experience with the likes of Agencies and the pay is usually hourly and can vary from NMW upwards depending on the agency rates/ time of day/ weekend/ bank holidays etc. Sometimes you can work long hours at what looks like a fair wage for someone new (say £10 an hour) but time you take out breaks and POA if you don’t get paid for that and average out that rate, what you take home is usually less.
Things like grab loader cards/ adr etc. can increase your rate but unless a company is willing to pay you for getting those cards, you’d need to pay for them yourself. Personally, I wouldn’t bother till you got the magic ‘recent’ experience box ticked with general driving which can be anything from 6 months to 2 years generally. I can’t see the point in paying out my pocket for things like ADR tickets early on as the chances of using them will be quite low, better to get some general driving under your belt first (imo).
You also have to factor in the days/ weeks that you might not get any work if you go agency route, especially this time of year. If you decide to do it in the next few months, you will increase your chances of getting work as it’ll be in to the holiday times and the need for agency drivers and build up your experience before the January/ Feb next year.
I work for a Southampton haulage company and Get £8.51 for 48 hours then time and half OT Monday Friday and some nights out
All our cat c trucks are autos MAN TGM or TGS same cab style as the fire engines just not got the better gearbox software
are you looking for just day work or nights away ?
I was looking at the ADR but after reading a few posts on here I decided it probably wasn’t worth the money.
I’d be looking for day time work, got a 10 month old daughter at home, so hence the need to change jobs to be able to provide more for my family, that’s the plan anyway.
I thought you usually get shafted by agencies ?
Just don’t want to waste my money if I’m not going to be financially better off in the long run.
Your auto only LGV C can now be changed to manual simply by sending licence to DVLA with a note asking them to do so
Providing you have a manual car licence
Of you’re a firefighter and into fitness and don’t mind the hard work. (I’ll assume your fit and recovery time will be quicker for you then others) then I’d seriously look at Palmer and Harveys or Bidvest if you live near by. 25-30 min drive max.
Clearing £1900 after tax with only 6h overtime one month was the best paying job I’ve had until where I am now but I’m class 1 now.
Hard work and a 48hr week doesn’t bother me, currently doing 50, will be doing 60 next week as I’ve got a 6 day week, we work Saturday and Sundays, bank holidays.
We don’t get paid overtime, we should get a 30 minute lunch break a day but don’t take it as you have so much work on you that you’ll end up working past your finish time, like I did a few weeks back, supposed to finish at 5, finished at 6:30 working for free.
Apologies for the rant.
I’ve got Brakes about 5 minutes from my house, but read a few posts on here saying it’s ball breaking and you get treated like Crap
Daz3244:
Hard work and a 48hr week doesn’t bother me, currently doing 50, will be doing 60 next week as I’ve got a 6 day week, we work Saturday and Sundays, bank holidays.
We don’t get paid overtime, we should get a 30 minute lunch break a day but don’t take it as you have so much work on you that you’ll end up working past your finish time, like I did a few weeks back, supposed to finish at 5, finished at 6:30 working for free.
Apologies for the rant.
I’ve got Brakes about 5 minutes from my house, but read a few posts on here saying it’s ball breaking and you get treated like Crap
I have just applied for Brakes. I fully expect hard work and rubbish treatment. However as a new pass I will take just to get time on my card. If you want to drive don’t think that this is as good as it gets.
Get some time on card and onwards to better things is my plan
I can’t comment for other yards, but I work at bidvest in Salisbury and we get just over £31000 basic, 48 hours and 1 in 4 Saturdays, overtime paid at flat hour rate, £12.46, 33 days holiday, 25 bookable and 8 bank holidays, triple time if you want to work bank holiday! Not bad considering I was a new pass, 18 months in and I quite enjoy it really!
Daz3244:
Hard work and a 48hr week doesn’t bother me, currently doing 50, will be doing 60 next week as I’ve got a 6 day week, we work Saturday and Sundays, bank holidays.
We don’t get paid overtime, we should get a 30 minute lunch break a day but don’t take it as you have so much work on you that you’ll end up working past your finish time, like I did a few weeks back, supposed to finish at 5, finished at 6:30 working for free.
Apologies for the rant.
I’ve got Brakes about 5 minutes from my house, but read a few posts on here saying it’s ball breaking and you get treated like Crap
Mate when I was at PH every driver bar like 2 moaned about the job. Issue is they’d been at the place years. People moan just for the sake of moaning.
Brakes will treat you like ■■■■ if you let them treat you like ■■■■. A guy I used to work with who shunted at Concorde Logistics spent 30 years at Brakes and could not praise the company enough.
Look if it’s 5 mins away it’s perfect. 12-15h shift there and ya 5 mins from home. I was an hour away from PH so that killed me. My new place is 5 mins away. You’ll be on good money at Brakes and they do have 2 man crews on some jobs. Should be on 30k a year easily. You’ll save money on fuel and get great experience driving class 2 trucks.
My place I work at now I was on about £25K a year. Work wasn’t that hard, large amount of London stuff though but no pallet line work which was nice. Some days you could start at 5am and you’d be done and parked up by 2pm.
