An average price my company will charge to transport 26 tonnes 200 miles is ~ £150-£250
Backloads same criteria will be £50-£100, anything to lessen the loss.
Most expensive I’ve seen per mile would be ~ £300 for 30 miles.
Cheapest will any of the backloads which are usually < £100.
We get paid £150/day whether we do 8 hours or 15.
We charged £150 a load from Briton Ferry to Port Talbot about 6 miles each way and i did 5 loads a day.
God I get those rates for a sprinter small van rates are even worse and now with fuel so cheep many want operators to lower rates
Javiatrix:
An average price my company will charge to transport 26 tonnes 200 miles is ~ £150-£250
Are you sure you have got these figures right? I’m a subby so I’m not on earth-shattering rates but for a 200 mile movement I’d be looking at between £320 and £400 depending on the customer.
Juddian:
Plambert:
Juddian:
Plambert:
We operate in a worldwide market for labour.Only because the electorate were dumb enough to vote, repeatedly, for their own replacement and in many cases displacement.
Which is doubly stupid when your island castle is surrounded by a decent moat.Nothing to do with that. You need to look at the bigger picture. Whether drivers come from Poland or Portsmouth they both have opportunities to work anywhere. Also, Transport is cheap because the market has overcapacity not just uk, have a gander around the web about overcapacity in shipping.
So too many imported workers nothing to do with being in the EU then, which our electorate voted for and will endorse again shortly, nor electing EUphiles to parliament for the last 40 years either.
You’ll be telling me next that the housing shortage and ridiculous unsustainable overvaluing has nothing at all to do with importing some 6 million over the last 2 decades, nor the NHS/schools/benefits crises.
Think you need to look a bit closer to home as to the source of the problems. If it wasn’t the EU it would somewhere else. The world is a small place. Just ask the Brazilian drivers on for Paitiner or the Argentinians on for various Spanish companies. Or the English guys working for HSF, TCA & Fiolet they are all part of the problem. Do you think guys in France and The Netherlands are not having the same issues/discussions?
Immigration has always gone on but blaming the government of the day is short-sighted in the extreme.
Stand-up and be counted. If you want to make a decent living do something that pays - most driving jobs don’t. It’s a fact of life. If it bothers you do something that does pay as unskilled jobs will always be, for the most part, poorly paid.
Plambert:
Juddian:
So too many imported workers nothing to do with being in the EU then, which our electorate voted for and will endorse again shortly, nor electing EUphiles to parliament for the last 40 years either.
You’ll be telling me next that the housing shortage and ridiculous unsustainable overvaluing has nothing at all to do with importing some 6 million over the last 2 decades, nor the NHS/schools/benefits crises.Think you need to look a bit closer to home as to the source of the problems. If it wasn’t the EU it would somewhere else. The world is a small place. Just ask the Brazilian drivers on for Paitiner or the Argentinians on for various Spanish companies. Or the English guys working for HSF, TCA & Fiolet they are all part of the problem. Do you think guys in France and The Netherlands are not having the same issues/discussions?
Immigration has always gone on but blaming the government of the day is short-sighted in the extreme.
Stand-up and be counted. If you want to make a decent living do something that pays - most driving jobs don’t. It’s a fact of life. If it bothers you do something that does pay as unskilled jobs will always be, for the most part, poorly paid.
I’m not blaming the government, there will always be shysters who act as front men for big business, i blame the deluded brainwashed electorate who keep putting them there and endorsing their acts by voting for then again and again…as evidence we as a nation elected Blair and his cronies three times in a row, call the yellow van.
Yes immigration has always gone on, at around 30k a year for decades, until 97 that is when that increased by ten fold, if the figures can be believed, i suspect it’s far higher than that.
I do rather well for your info, having made the move into niche parts of the industry many years ago, but many thanks for your concern and advice.
Why big companies will pay big money??They make load movement for profit .But all job in Stobart,FW,Freshlinc,Culina ,Nft easy from easy job for people .Any monkey can drive and do this job.And man can get licence in 1 month time ,just need spend 3-5k and after if found job can earn 25-35k per years.My sister sun study in Ireland about 6 years for constraction engineer.Finish college with gold medal,now study in London for oil engineer and he talk who he can easy found job but start money just 20-30k per years.Driving licence with 0ne month and oil engineer study 6 yerars but start money same.
weeto:
Conor:
scotstrucker:
fuel prices too high, too many prepared too work for next too nowtFuel is the cheapest its been for 10 years. Plenty of people prepared to work for nowt though as you say.
Some have no choice but to work for next to nowt = minimum wage, just like some drivers have no choice but to work for [zb] companies, its not always in the control of the driver to choose were or how much he works for.
What a load of crap. 
You can blame EE,migration or anythig.But problem become from another.Long time ago in UK was plenty family running companies and big companies belong to local people.10-15 years ago start big companies expansion,some family owners sold company to foreigh person or companies.Now major transport companies belong to global investors .Global companies have one target-get profit and invest in something new again.
Carl Usher:
weeto:
Conor:
scotstrucker:
fuel prices too high, too many prepared too work for next too nowtFuel is the cheapest its been for 10 years. Plenty of people prepared to work for nowt though as you say.
Some have no choice but to work for next to nowt = minimum wage, just like some drivers have no choice but to work for [zb] companies, its not always in the control of the driver to choose were or how much he works for.
What a load of crap.
You obviously don’t live in the north east with a wife and kids to support.
I can vouch for that Weeto, i know couple of lads from up that neck of the woods working down the midlands and buggering off home for a couple or three days a fortnight.
Lots of them worked where i used to on the cars as outbased drivers, found themselves decent parking for £cheap and kept the motor at home.
We all have to do what we have to do.
weeto:
Carl Usher:
weeto:
Some have no choice but to work for next to nowt = minimum wage, just like some drivers have no choice but to work for [zb] companies, its not always in the control of the driver to choose were or how much he works for.What a load of crap.
You obviously don’t live in the north east with a wife and kids to support.
You obviously have no clue what “living within your means” is all about. But I’ll bet that these “drivers [that] have no choice” all have the latest iPhone in their pocket and a 65-plate Audi parked outside.
Andrejs:
.Now major transport companies belong to global investors .Global companies have one target-get profit and invest in something new again.
100% Correct.
Carl Usher:
weeto:
Some have no choice but to work for next to nowt = minimum wage, just like some drivers have no choice but to work for [zb] companies, its not always in the control of the driver to choose were or how much he works for.What a load of crap.
You’re right Carl. Load of crap. They’re all undervaluing themselves. And it goes on right across the world, there’s people living in shanty towns in Africa living on subsistence pay, all because they won’t stick up for their rights and ask for more. Same in India, millions of them…
You should write a book, “How to get out the low pay trap”…it’ll be a best seller, you’ll be able to retire and not work again if only you’d share your secrets !!! 
sortca:
Seeing as though one of the constant gripes about transport is the issue of low pay, surely transport must too cheap. When the owners of transport firms win contracts I understand there is a lot of things to consider, its not as simple as supplying a truck/driver and doing the job. There’s also competition from other companies to consider, therefore they get locked into a bidding war. After all costs are considered then hopefully there is a little left over to pay the driver. Will there be a day when firms turn to customers and say that transport is too cheap and rates need to rise,because drivers are demanding a “professional rate” for a “professional job”.
Great question. A brief look through this forum will show…
I’ve no problem with any of that. Thats our human nature to do that. Thats just how we are as people, always striving for a bit more without strict regard to the consequences.
Now, apply the same logic to someone running a Transport Company …
Conor:
scotstrucker:
fuel prices too high, too many prepared too work for next too nowtFuel is the cheapest its been for 10 years. Plenty of people prepared to work for nowt though as you say.
Yes fuels the cheapest it has been for a decade but that doesn’t stop many running trucks on breakeven rates or some loads at a loss as the customer often dictates the rate.
Javiatrix:
An average price my company will charge to transport 26 tonnes 200 miles is ~ £150-£250Backloads same criteria will be £50-£100, anything to lessen the loss.
Most expensive I’ve seen per mile would be ~ £300 for 30 miles.
Cheapest will any of the backloads which are usually < £100.We get paid £150/day whether we do 8 hours or 15.
Your company can run an artic for 75p to £1.25 per mile?
We get 40p/mile fuel allowance if we use our own car to travel for work, how they get 75p/mile for a lorry would make good reading…
Darkside:
Your company can run an artic for 75p to £1.25 per mile?We get 40p/mile fuel allowance if we use our own car to travel for work, how they get 75p/mile for a lorry would make good reading…
Couldn’t be done!
I was invited to tender for some work, which would have fitted in well with our niche market.
But they had got some transport consultants in…zzzzzzzz. Sure they gave the company a big flashy sales pitch about how they can rationalise costs and create synergys blah blah. Load of waffle about being the right company to ‘partner’ with and how its a collaborative venture ( losing the will to live at that point). And it was all a load of ********* because what they wanted was:
A reverse auction - which means that you get on an internet platform with the other ‘preferred’ bidders and you bid down… So say you decided you could do something for a £1.00 a mile, someone else will say they can do it for 0.99p a mile, so you scratch your head and think OK, I could do this for 0.98…then a third bidder comes in at 0.97. Talk about dispiriting 
Then there’s the opposite of that which forms the next bit of the bidding whereby you tell them how much of a rebate you are going to give them for their work 
so that would start at 0.5% and someone else will chip in at 0.75%…
All i want to do is say, it’s going to cost £x per mile, you like it or you don’t like it. 
The bottom line with transport is that wages is the only thing anyone has to manoeuvre on. There’s some differences on volumes - Stobart is going to get a Scania a lot cheaper than I will, but over the life of a vehicle, it isn’t a huge factor. Fuel is a bit cheaper, but ultimately the cost that is most flexible to an operator is what they can get their staff to work for. But they are under pressure to work for less in the same way that a driver is. A company can only do its best to be the most attractive it can be to command a decent rate, much like a driver has to show that he’s worth more for whatever differential.
As regards the bidding for the contract above, i told them that they were everything that was wrong with modern business practice and we declined to qutote. I know how to make myself popular 
Quite Albion, no point at all in getting involved with rubbish like that, down that road lies eventual ruin, you were right to put your hands up and leave them to it, when it’s all gone ■■■■ up and the consultants disappeared back into their lairs the phone will be ringing again.
Doesn’t there come a point when the wrong salaries attract the wrong people for the job (talking in averages here, there will always be the right people earning a pittance and idiots in prime jobs) become detrimental to your operation in the long term, you can end up as, as some have, of being the training company for others to benefit from, where the young and inexperienced go to get some mileage under their belt (with associated costs) and soon as they have they’re off to better climes.
We all know there are operators that have graveyards of bent vehicles, standing joke some places, there must come a point when an operator is down to their last insurer, which might be OK if they’re big enough to run the risk of self insuring, you’d hope seeing the results for themselves as the downhill run starts would ring alarm bells, though by that time it might be too late…or are vehicles are so cheap now that it works out economically, maybe they don’t claim on the insurance for own wreckage (where the numpties have driven into a tree or ditch) and the only claims are from any third party’s involved.
I don’t know how cheap in transport in UK, but everything I buy from UK over the internet that gets shipped here in Sofia has option free UK delivery.
I was chatting few days ago with Bulgarian living in Aberdeen, Scotland, when discussing trucking he said there is no point of getting hgv licence, get low pay and work unsocial hours. Right now he is full time employee in catering company at 9p/h.
Tell me, how are you sure that without EE drivers wages will go up as big business and government will import drivers on visa scheme from all over the world? I mean how can you be sure that after Brexit UK Government will work in its people interests and not for big business interests? The business will scream, there is not enough drivers, Gov will introduce Tier 1 visa and you have more drivers. Currently UK government issues over 1 million visas per year(tourist and transit visas not included in this numer). What will stop them for issuing several hundred thousand more?