I agree with Lostpup there is a shortage of experienced drivers. Also if you don’t like the pay and conditions then get another job, if you can’t find a another job then the pay reflects the economic conditions.
Relish with your burgers lads?.. 
Shortage of Drivers? My answer is at times there is a shortage. Usually at weekends and nights working for the Supermarkets. I would say that there is no shortage of Drivers wanting or doing Mon to Fri on Days. 
TONY:
Relish with your burgers lads?..
You’ll be begging for you job back in month. I have tried to get out of driving many time. I have worked in Cash and Carry dealing with customers who complain to me for not having the stuff and a foreman who’s aim in life is to make sure you don’t stop except for you one hour for dinner and on IT helpdesks where I was sat in front of a comuter for 8 hours a day with a headset on answering stupid question from people who have a go at me because they couldn’t grasp the basics of a computer and being pushed by managers to reach ever increasing targets for calls cleared up. Ok I my hourly rate might have been higher than most drivers, but there was no overtime and therefore I ended up taking home less money. Being a truck driver isn’t perfect the hours are to long and pay is too low, but no job is perfect and many earn less than us.
The thing is, when faced with big bills coming in, and no money, would YOU hold out for 8 or 9 quid per hour when a 6 quid job is in front of you?
I know I’d have a real hard time watching the baliffs taking my car away because I turned down a poor pay job.
allikat:
The thing is, when faced with big bills coming in, and no money, would YOU hold out for 8 or 9 quid per hour when a 6 quid job is in front of you?I know I’d have a real hard time watching the baliffs taking my car away because I turned down a poor pay job.
I agree alli would rather that than be on social taking the hard earned money of the people who pay their taxes so that they have to strive for that pay more than £8/hour job
TONY:
Relish with your burgers lads?..
Nice to see you’ve still got your sense of humour Tony. 
Relish, full salad and chips on the side please Tony
And if you can keep it under 3 quid, I’d be grateful, us drivers earn less than you burger flippers 
For the benefit of Lostpup, drivers who do work for £5.50 an hour (and we’ve even shown adverts on here for driving jobs on less than £5 p/h!) do knacker it up for the rest of us.
I earn around £7.50 p/h and no I don’t think I’m being paid enough to drive an artic, with all the responsibility that goes with it. etc
As for “sodding off and flipping burgers!,” I can’t really see myself in a baseball cap asking if “you want fries with that?” For me it’s not just the money, but obviously money has a big part to play, I have a mortgage see.
Just one further point, my first pay packet was at the princely sum of £4.50 p/h for driving an artic, maybe I was a muppet…
Mind you, that was ten years ago!
I agree that you have to start somewhere to gain experience, but around the North of England, many agencies are paying over £6.50 an hour with a good overtime rate.
Dazza
I think there’s a definite shortage of GOOD drivers. I never have any trouble getting a job when I go back to Europe, but then I only do European work, so I don’t know about doing UK multi-drop and hanging around outside Tescos at dawn and all that. I only have to pick up the phone or go round international firms in and around East Kent and I get a start the following day, for good quality firms with decent equipment, no running bent, either. Take-home pay is always between 400 and 500 quid a week, depending on the type of work. Last year I worked for a well-known firm with blue Scanias in Dover, they couldn’t get good drivers for love nor money. Mind you, it does depend on your acceptance of being away a lot.
The firm hired three agency guys for a week last year. All three had minor accidents, none of them had been abroad before, and yet they were taking home (!!!) 700 quid for a trip to Milan.