Realistic salary?

How much is average salary for class 1 driving ?. I’m aware working nights would be better pay.

Craig2222:
How much is average salary for class 1 driving ?. I’m aware working nights would be better pay.

Anywhere between £0 and 40k is realistic depending on who you work for and doing average work and dependant on hours you want to work in general as a general rule. Bit lost jobs paying near 40k will be either tamping or doing a lot of overtime.

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£11,211.20/year after tax if you are willing to put the hours in.

Some do claim to get more, but you shouldn’t include night out money in the calculation.

Depends on the type of work, whereabouts in the country you are and the company you work for.
Working for Stobarts at the top of Scotland will see you earn a lot less than pulling tankers based in the South East for example

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carlston49:
£11,211.20/year after tax if you are willing to put the hours in.

Some do claim to get more, but you shouldn’t include night out money in the calculation.

Not even £1,000 per month gross? That’s £4.70 ph (putting the hours in)
That’s illegal.

It would vary considerably due to area and also the type of outfit. In terms of a basic £25k to £30k. Many would decide this isn’t enough and want to either work nights or pile in the overtime, making £40k possible, but at a personal cost obviously.

Are you guys trying to say that to reach £40k gross annual salary you have be putting in the hours and by no means it’s readily available salary?
I mean surely it should be achievable pretty much anywhere doing class1 and working around 50h a week.

Let’s assume a driver gets paid £15.50 and does 50h, that’s £775 weekly, yearly it will be £40300. I thought that there is driver shortage and wages have gone up significantly.

I may have re-evaluate the whole plan of getting class1 license. If this means I will struggle to hit 40k. I can reach easily 40k in my current job. That also involves driving, but something a lot smaller than articulated lorry and that’s based on average 50h a week too.

Blacov89:
Are you guys trying to say that to reach £40k gross annual salary you have be putting in the hours and by no means it’s readily available salary?
I mean surely it should be achievable pretty much anywhere doing class1 and working around 50h a week.

Let’s assume a driver gets paid £15.50 and does 50h, that’s £775 weekly, yearly it will be £40300. I thought that there is driver shortage and wages have gone up significantly.

I may have re-evaluate the whole plan of getting class1 license. If this means I will struggle to hit 40k. I can reach easily 40k in my current job. That also involves driving, but something a lot smaller than articulated lorry and that’s based on average 50h a week too.

Then I’d stick to your current job if your earning 40k a year for not driving a truck.

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simcor:

Blacov89:
Are you guys trying to say that to reach £40k gross annual salary you have be putting in the hours and by no means it’s readily available salary?
I mean surely it should be achievable pretty much anywhere doing class1 and working around 50h a week.

Let’s assume a driver gets paid £15.50 and does 50h, that’s £775 weekly, yearly it will be £40300. I thought that there is driver shortage and wages have gone up significantly.

I may have re-evaluate the whole plan of getting class1 license. If this means I will struggle to hit 40k. I can reach easily 40k in my current job. That also involves driving, but something a lot smaller than articulated lorry and that’s based on average 50h a week too.

Then I’d stick to your current job if your earning 40k a year for not driving a truck.

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40k in the area where I live isn’t anything exciting especially when job isn’t exactly cushy and you have daily commute on top. I think I will still try to get class1 as a back up and once qualified I can keep an eye on job postings.

The trouble is it isn’t really a regulated industry when it comes to pay. To a large extent the pay is whatever companies can get drivers for. There are exceptions such as heavily unionised workplaces, where pay has been negotiated for years and generally stays with inflation.

To get in some of these positions it isn’t really a gimme and some drivers never do end up at one of the better payers. The variance is quite large. You could be on £40k driving 7.5 tonne doing one extra day a month but you could be on £21k driving class 1 too. The sought after work is more difficult to obtain, so visions of walking straight in aren’t really too realistic, but not impossible at the moment with 6 months experience.

A friend of mine passed his Class 1 last summer, he is Tramping and gets £13.50/hour and £25 per night out (based Kent area). He “works” about 50 hours a week, he has just put in his notice for a better job day Tramping where his pay will be £16.50 / hour (Birmingham area).

Annualised he is now getting approximately £33k and £5.5k tax free allowances, that’s equivalent to a gross £41k.
If he works the same hours in his new job assuming the same allowances £39k and £5.5k tax free allowances, so a gross £47k.

carlston49:
£11,211.20/year after tax if you are willing to put the hours in.

Some do claim to get more, but you shouldn’t include night out money in the calculation.

I think you have got this wrong, you wouldn’t pay any tax on £11.2k and even if he worked a 35 hour working week that’s £6.67 per hour which is below the minimum wage assuming he/she is over 21.

David DeHavilland:

carlston49:
£11,211.20/year after tax if you are willing to put the hours in. Some do claim to get more, but you shouldn’t include night out money in the calculation.

I think you have got this wrong, you wouldn’t pay any tax on £11.2k and even if he worked a 35 hour working week that’s £6.67 per hour which is below the minimum wage assuming he/she is over 21.

I haven’t included the personal allowances, as those can vary…and the point is to illustrate how low the marginal pay rate can be, ie. the amount you earn/hour after tax once you are earning more than your personal allowances.

20% income tax, 13.25% national insurance (from April 2022), and perhaps 5% pension contributions would bring down £10/hour gross pay to a very low take home pay of £6.17/hour.

Blacov89:
Are you guys trying to say that to reach £40k gross annual salary you have be putting in the hours and by no means it’s readily available salary?
I mean surely it should be achievable pretty much anywhere doing class1 and working around 50h a week.

Let’s assume a driver gets paid £15.50 and does 50h, that’s £775 weekly, yearly it will be £40300. I thought that there is driver shortage and wages have gone up significantly.

I may have re-evaluate the whole plan of getting class1 license. If this means I will struggle to hit 40k. I can reach easily 40k in my current job. That also involves driving, but something a lot smaller than articulated lorry and that’s based on average 50h a week too.

If I was getting 40k a year for 50 hours a week driving a van, I would be staying put and make no mistake. Even if wages in your area for class 1 might be slightly more than 40k, what do you do if you shell out for the license then struggle to get a start with the higher paying firms because they might want 2 years experience(just look at some of the threads on here where people have had this problem), so you might have to go and work for someone who is paying 35k or less who take new passes.

around £38.5 grand basic at our place, M-F easy work,some ■■■■ runs tho,and lots of DD work puts quite a few drivers off.with the new ‘dark’ payments,£40k easily achievable.

carlston49:

David DeHavilland:

carlston49:
£11,211.20/year after tax if you are willing to put the hours in. Some do claim to get more, but you shouldn’t include night out money in the calculation.

I think you have got this wrong, you wouldn’t pay any tax on £11.2k and even if he worked a 35 hour working week that’s £6.67 per hour which is below the minimum wage assuming he/she is over 21.

I haven’t included the personal allowances, as those can vary…and the point is to illustrate how low the marginal pay rate can be, ie. the amount you earn/hour after tax once you are earning more than your personal allowances.

20% income tax, 13.25% national insurance (from April 2022), and perhaps 5% pension contributions would bring down £10/hour gross pay to a very low take home pay of £6.17/hour.

Bs

carlston49:

David DeHavilland:

carlston49:
£11,211.20/year after tax if you are willing to put the hours in. Some do claim to get more, but you shouldn’t include night out money in the calculation.

I think you have got this wrong, you wouldn’t pay any tax on £11.2k and even if he worked a 35 hour working week that’s £6.67 per hour which is below the minimum wage assuming he/she is over 21.

I haven’t included the personal allowances, as those can vary…and the point is to illustrate how low the marginal pay rate can be, ie. the amount you earn/hour after tax once you are earning more than your personal allowances.

20% income tax, 13.25% national insurance (from April 2022), and perhaps 5% pension contributions would bring down £10/hour gross pay to a very low take home pay of £6.17/hour.

I understand but on £10/hour and say 48 hours a week 48 weeks a year gives £23k after tax and NI its £19,304 net per year before pension (assuming a tax code of 1275L) so £11k is well below this and may put people off.
I imagine this is a very below average wage you quote and only 50p above the new minimum wage equating what I consider a highly skilled and responsible job with say cleaners. In fact, I pay my cleaner £25 (cash) a week which I reckon takes less than 2 hours and i doubt she declares it for tax !

David DeHavilland:
I understand but on £10/hour and say 48 hours a week…

Long hours such as 48 hours/week makes the problem even worse as far as the take home hourly pay rate is concerned.

If a driver earns £12/hour, after about 20 hours the driver is paying almost 40% tax on the other 28 hours that he is working each week. So those last 28 hours are paid at a low £7.20/hour.

The almost 40% tax is made up of 20% income tax, 13.25% NI, and pension contributions.

In some European countries such as Sweden, they pay drivers enough before tax so that their take home hourly pay rate is still good after tax.

In the UK, they would rather just top up low income families with things like family tax credit. This means the people with families are willing to take low paid part time work such as 24 hours/week x £10/hour = £240…which then doubles to £480 after the family working tax credit is added. So a low paid worker is effectively taking home £20/hour after tax. No wonder the take home pay rate is so bad for drivers who don’t claim government handouts.

carlston49:

David DeHavilland:
I understand but on £10/hour and say 48 hours a week…

Long hours such as 48 hours/week makes the problem even worse as far as the take home hourly pay rate is concerned.

If a driver earns £12/hour, after about 20 hours the driver is paying almost 40% tax on the other 28 hours that he is working each week. So those last 28 hours are paid at a low £7.20/hour.

The almost 40% tax is made up of 20% income tax, 13.25% NI, and pension contributions.

No logic in that pal, you have to pay income tax and ni in this country, you can sack the pension off if you want to, but why would you, it’s free money, I look on it as Increasing my hourly rate because my employer HAS to contribute

shullbit:
No logic in that pal, you have to pay income tax and ni in this country, you can sack the pension off if you want to, but why would you, it’s free money, I look on it as Increasing my hourly rate because my employer HAS to contribute

It still reduces the £12/hour in the example above, to £7.20/hour that you have to live on.

Not including pension contributions only takes that £7.20/hour to £8.01/hour…but most people pay the pension contributions so only have £7.20/hour to live on.

You also have to pay to commute by car, and that’s not even tax deductible.

The fact is, there’s a massive shortage of drivers in this country…and I can see why.

Some agencies have increased rates in some areas, but they have said that’s only temporary…and as soon as they get enough drivers the rates are going back down again.