just wondering if anyone has heard what it is like to be a mobile crane operator?
saw an advert in the paper for a trainee for a mobile crane operator, I think it’s one of these big yellow cranes with the massive wheels and the single cabs at the front, well I suppose it would be best to have them at the front
have heard the money isn’t bad, but is that just cos you have to put in so many hours on poa hanging about building sites waiting on deliveries?
all they are asking for is a Class 2 licence, but I am not sure if they are just trying to poach other crane drivers, but they don’t want to appear to be blatantly poaching?
I think the money will likely be good as it is another skill and more certification, there will probably be a fair bit of hanging around though and likely long days and antisocial hours.
Mobile cranes also come as smaller 4 wheelers where you drive the thing from the crane cab in the middlish. I’d imagine the money goes up with the size of the crane, I’d also imagine that newly trained drivers would start small and get bigger machines with experience.
my uncles a crane driver hes on 20k+ and the hours arn’t that bad but they tie u in to so x amount of years with the cost of training if u want anymore info i’ll ask him
I used to be a crane driver a few years ago, the hourly rate then was less than driving an hgv,but it was made up to a decent wage by the horrendously long hours we were expected to do .
Where i worked the lifting capacity of the crane you were given determined the pay rate you were on ,so the bigger the crane the more you earned,the guys that worked on the heavy crane division were earning fortunes but it took years to get on the big cranes because you would be filling dead mans shoes to work on them.
Personally I found it the most boring job I have ever had but there were some I worked with that absolutely loved it - each to his own!!
Dont know whether things have changed now though but the cranes had a tacho fitted but it was not required to use it,and we also were able to run on red diesel.
