NoTruck:
Just throw some ball park figures up for salary and average weekly hours if poss! Thanks
It’s far more complex than that.
Running even one lorry is more complex that running a van. Anyone with a category B driving licence (i.e. a car licence), a van with current MoT certificate, insurance for business use and for goods in transit can start a ‘man with a van’ business, parking the van outside their home at night.
You need an standard operator’s licence to run anything over 3.5t for hire or reward, which means you need an operating centre with suitable planning permission (parking a lorry on a residential street will not do!), a freight operator’s CPC (or the services of someone who has a CPC) and finance sufficient to satisfy the Traffic Commissioner. If you don’t stay on the right side of VOSA, your operator’s licence will ultimately be withdrawn.
As well as the finance required for the O licence, you need sufficient funds to cover the gap between incurring costs and receiving payment (which is a lot considering how much fuel a lorry can drink in a week). You are taking a considerable degree of financial risk - exactly how much depends on what basis you obtain the vehicle, repairs and maintenance. Ultimately it is a balancing act between hiring or leasing a newish vehicle (lower repair costs)Â and buying an older vehicle (higher repair costs, greater risk of breakdown).
Most of all, there’s no such thing as salary and average weekly hours. As an owner-driver in the current economy, you would have to do whatever you can within the driver’s hours’ rules to carry out whatever work you can get. Well-paid work is not plentiful - if it was, everyone would be rushing to be an owner-driver. It seems that the readily available work will struggle even to cover overheads, but people will take it at those rates because it pays bills they cannot otherwise escape or because any sort of backload is better than running to the next job empty.
There is real risk involved. If you are ill, your income is zero and you are incurring costs. Unless you can find work that exceeds your overheads by a sufficient margin, it may be cheaper to park up. Again, your income is zero and you’re incurring costs, but at least you’re free to take other work (even if it is multidrop van work for an agency).
The current situation is basic economics. There is an oversupply of LGV drivers and vehicles for the haulage work available in many sectors and geographic areas. This drives prices down and means there is a fight for sufficiently well-paid work. This is why nobody will give more than “it’s tough right now” answers - it isn’t in anyone’s commercial interests to help potential competitors.