Seems to be a lot of palaver from old truckers who have been getting 50 pence above the min wage for the last 20 years that “14-15 quid an hour” is going to attract young people into driving like a swarm of locusts.
Will it really? Its still rubbish money - would I spend 2-4 grand getting a license cos I might one day earn 14 quid an hour? Not on your nelly. I think a lot of us might be delusional after earning so little for so long.
i take your point but i disagree on just a wage basis
There are 1000’s of young people spending around 30-40k to get a degree in cartoons to end up on minimum wage. at least if you spend a couple of thousand on a liscence you get a chance of getting a job at the end of it.
True, degrees arnt what they were.
The agency gave me a pay rise recently of 28p/hr, and this week they even gave me the accrued back pay of 54.7hr x 28p. Needless to say I suggested where they could put it
My mates lad is 19 and works in the tesco home delivery bit but not driving, more organising orders and so on. He’s passed his test a while ago and is now going on the vans. From there he has a chance of getting onto class two with training provided then class one, for no outlay.
If he does do that in the next two years say he could potentially be 21 years old earning quite easily 45k a year or more if he wanted, with no nights out (barring extreme emergencies), fairly set shifts for work that is a not exactly pressured and so on.
I know it doesn’t fit with the narrative 
but can anyone else offer an alternative job where a 21 year old could easily earn 45k?
Problem is that in “normal” times the only ones who will punt on younguns are the ones who try to fit two weeks work into five days, see 15hrs as a benchmark and pay the least they can get away with, for all hours. But these aren’t normal times…
cooper1203:
i take your point but i disagree on just a wage basisThere are 1000’s of young people spending around 30-40k to get a degree in cartoons to end up on minimum wage. at least if you spend a couple of thousand on a liscence you get a chance of getting a job at the end of it.
Exactly this.[emoji106]
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Depends what area you come from, my area £13-14hr was the going rate now it’s £16-20hr depending if its full time or agency. But as said before youngsters want a life and lorry driving it’s not a career for that.
Really how many people want to do tramping now. Live in your lorry all week and then have 36-45hrs at home then repeat. If you lucky you may find somewhere to shower. Not a very good advert for driving for a living.
Even where I work on agency, high street work , high pay, home every night and they still carnt fill the jobs.
Nobody wants to be working class,anymore.
It ain’t cool.
Get a degree in nonsense,and then take a 9-5 non job…with a fancy title.
Then buy everything on credit…and everyone’s a winner 
toonsy:
My mates lad is 19 and works in the tesco home delivery bit but not driving, more organising orders and so on. He’s passed his test a while ago and is now going on the vans. From there he has a chance of getting onto class two with training provided then class one, for no outlay.If he does do that in the next two years say he could potentially be 21 years old earning quite easily 45k a year or more if he wanted, with no nights out (barring extreme emergencies), fairly set shifts for work that is a not exactly pressured and so on.
I know it doesn’t fit with the narrative
Problem is that in “normal” times the only ones who will punt on younguns are the ones who try to fit two weeks work into five days, see 15hrs as a benchmark and pay the least they can get away with, for all hours. But these aren’t normal times…
Can you easily earn 45k driving a class 1? I’m seeing £14-15 an hour on the agency but the full time jobs seem to be 13-14 quid an hour tops. Still plenty of jobs advertising at 11 quid an hour.
JeffA:
toonsy:
My mates lad is 19 and works in the tesco home delivery bit but not driving, more organising orders and so on. He’s passed his test a while ago and is now going on the vans. From there he has a chance of getting onto class two with training provided then class one, for no outlay.If he does do that in the next two years say he could potentially be 21 years old earning quite easily 45k a year or more if he wanted, with no nights out (barring extreme emergencies), fairly set shifts for work that is a not exactly pressured and so on.
I know it doesn’t fit with the narrative
Problem is that in “normal” times the only ones who will punt on younguns are the ones who try to fit two weeks work into five days, see 15hrs as a benchmark and pay the least they can get away with, for all hours. But these aren’t normal times…
Can you easily earn 45k driving a class 1? I’m seeing £14-15 an hour on the agency but the full time jobs seem to be 13-14 quid an hour tops. Still plenty of jobs advertising at 11 quid an hour.
Well yeah, I can do it. I used my own wages as a reference. And that’s based on 48.5hrs a week.
Ah I see - well done toonsy!
JeffA:
Ah I see - well done toonsy!
It’s not a well done. I just fell alright and was in the right place at the right time. But the point I’m making in my mates lad example is that he could join subject to passing and so on and be on the same wage as me. Fair play! Or more if he wanted it.
Even at £13ph for the 48hrs it would be about 32.5k which again isn’t so shabby for potentially a 21 year old.
I’ve no idea on salaries for graduates. I know they’ll vary but I doubt many will hit 30k immediately. And that’s after further education, a few years at university and no doubt saddled with debt to boot! That’s why I chuckle when I hear “it’s expensive to get a licence” which it is, but in terms of earning ability versus initial outlay it’s pocket change.
It might be a pittance down south but in other parts of the country it’s a different story.
£14/hr, the lowest rate my agency pays in Hull and the rate that’s starting to become the new floor in the area, puts you above the pay rate of most of the jobs in the city and that includes managerial and professional positions. It puts you above the pay rate of most of the jobs in my town. The wage you get for an average full week in lorry driving puts you above what many professionals are earning. It’ll put you above what junior doctors, teachers, solicitors are getting paid in my area. What I’m on for a 53.5hr week will put you above not only the shelf stackers at Aldi but the store manager.
And all for a job where you need no experience, no academic qualifications, not even the ability to read and write. Just think about that and let that sink in. You can leave school barely able to scrawl your own name on a piece of paper and you can earn more money than people who have had to leave school with good A level grades, go to university and do a 2 or 3 year degree, do additional professional qualifications after that and be a member of a professional body. What else offers that?
And whilst £3k might seem expensive to get a licence it’s the bargain of the century for entry to a job that pays what lorry driving pays. It pales into insignificance to the £18,000 to £27,000 you pay for university to get a law degree, the £17,000 you then have to spend to get a LPC, the £3000 you then have to spend to sit the Solicitors Qualifying exam (that is payable every time you sit it) and the ongoing annual Law Society membership fees all to earn less than a lorry driver who does nothing more complicated than dragging flat pack kitchens and chipboard around the country in a curtainsider.
If anyone in this country currently has a right to complain about how much they paid for training to earn the salary they do it is not lorry drivers by a long shot.
Conor:
It might be a pittance down south but in other parts of the country it’s a different story.£14/hr, the lowest rate my agency pays in Hull, puts you above the pay rate of most of the jobs in the city and that includes managerial and professional positions. It puts you above the pay rate of most of the jobs in my town. The wage you get for an average full week in lorry driving puts you above what many professionals are earning. It’ll put you above what junior doctors, teachers, solicitors are getting paid in my area. What I’m on for a 53.5hr week will put you above not only the shelf stackers at Aldi but the store manager.
And all for a job where you need no experience, no academic qualifications, not even the ability to read and write. Just think about that and let that sink in. You can leave school barely able to scrawl your own name on a piece of paper and you can earn more money than people who have had to leave school with good A level grades, go to university and do a 2 or 3 year degree, do additional professional qualifications after that and be a member of a professional body. What else offers that? And whilst £3k is expensive to get a licence it pales into insignificance to the £9000 a year you pay for university to get a law degree, the £17,000 you then have to spend to get a LPC, the £3000 you then have to spend to sit the Solicitors Qualifying exam and the ongoing annual Law Society membership fees.
Don’t think you can disagree with this, but the problem is more to do with hours and conditions. I’m old school and happy to work 60hr plus a week. But young people don’t want it
elsa Lad:
Don’t think you can disagree with this, but the problem is more to do with hours and conditions. I’m old school and happy to work 60hr plus a week. But young people don’t want it
Indeed it isn’t just about the money which is why I used my wage rise last year to take the opportunity to reduce my working week to four nights doing between 36 and 40hrs instead of continuing to bang in 50+hrs a week. Many old school don’t want 60hrs plus a week either which is why there are 600,000 HGV licence holders not driving lorries for a living. I think for many lorry drivers who were furloughed last year, especially trampers, getting time at home made them realise what they were missing spending most of their waking hours sat in a lorry and a lot of them decided they didn’t want it any more.
Remember Pat Nicholson who founded the PDA? She used to be a tramper at Bentons on containers. On their forums she and I would always argue about missing out on life doing the hours we did and she said she didn’t. And this went on for quite some time. She then had to stop driving lorries for medical reasons. A few weeks later I got a PM from her saying I was right and she didn’t actually realise just how much she’d missed out on with friends, family and just doing stuff whilst she was doing the job. It was only when she was forced to stop and work the hours normal sensible people did that she got shown just how much she’d been missing out on.
I’ve done exactly the same as Conor (and we’ve also made the same point. Kindred spirit? 
) albeit I moves jobs, but I used the wage rises to reduce my hours down to 48 from 65+ for the same cash.
toonsy:
I’ve done exactly the same as Conor (and we’ve also made the same point. Kindred spirit?
Me too. I just job hopped from one better paying job to the next. I found 4-on -4-off jobs paid around as much as mon-fri 60+ hour jobs, if not more.
I feel quite happy doing approx 42 hours a week working 4-on 4-off nights nudging £38k. I think back to May-Jun 2004 and the money I spent on my HGV training/tests was probably the best investment I made into myself. I was earning £13k as a parcel courier then. I left that job on Fri and walked into my first class-1 job on Mon on £26k. I’ve never looked back and am reasonably happy in life.
4-on 4-off gives me more time off than I know what to do with, and all that extra money I’ve earned over what I would have earned as a courier is saved in the bank or invested.
Get the right job on the right shift pattern at the right time and place and lorry driving aint so bad at all.
Which then opens up another issue, or extends a current one I guess.
Take the last three posts from myself, Conor and ezydriver… all three of us have dropped hours. Combine that together and that almost one full driver off the road in terms of hours over the course of a week.
It’s great for me and I couldn’t give a toss that I’ve turned away from 65+ hour weeks, every week. But I wonder how many have done similar and in turn how many drivers its cost in terms of hours and how that translates into the current shortage.
elsa Lad:
… but the problem is more to do with hours and conditions. I’m old school and happy to work 60hr plus a week. But young people don’t want it
I’m 40-odd so guess not too young and don’t want to work 60+ hours a week regardless of the money. As for nights out and tramping, screw that! Had 2 pay rises this year but hours nearly killed me (literally).
At ours its not just the drivers getting peed off with the hours either. Plenty of FLTs quitting due to being forced into overtime due to this “temporary” situation…temp since March!? Think its going to collapse big time soon.
Our lot have very recently increased the pay and this week taken on a lad in his twenties, it’s a 45 hour week home every night. Overtime at x1.5 with plenty of it if you want it. His basic salary is £44,178 I’d love to see a job that pays that with a few weeks worth of training and a couple of £k
Not all driving jobs pay a pittance.