I had exactly the same plan after I was made redundant from a continental job a few years back. I did all the training courses in the hope of making myself more employable (HIAB, FLT,ADR, Driver CPC, National CPC). I was hoping that I would find employment with a builders merchant and then with time and experience maybe move up into office job of the same.
The recession not only killed off many construction companies but also nearly killed off many buiders merchants so jobs with them were non existent (any jobs were taken up by builders who had goverment grants to retrain, as had I, but they had the industry experience).
I found a job with a refuse company but left that after 3 months. The vehicle was a death trap with maintenance being very low priority. The hours were “job and jack” which I did not have a problem with, i did however have a problem with not using a tacho (the goods in the dust cart were his, as he had bought them from his customers so he claimed he didnt need tachos!). The hours were start at 3am and finish between 10 and 12 (dependant on daily run). Weekly pay for Mon - Fri £300 before stoppages with 4 weeks holiday.
I then went to work for a local builders merchant that also did skip hire, not a bad job, kept busy, £7.50 an hour with x1.5 after 8 hours. During the summer months the hours were 7 - 3 Mon - Fri and plenty of overtime every day. Winter was 8 - 4 with no overtime ever.
I tried a few times to get on the council on refuse with no success. You have to wait for somebody to die or retire before getting a chance and then the cv/application has to be spot on (meet all criteria and have relevant experience). that is the best paying job! the council bin men where I live are on just under £25k a year for 37 hour weeks and all benefits.
So what happened to me? I went back on tramping!
Good luck!!
A lad i know is a mixer driver. Sure his hours are 8 - 4/5. Maybe the odd Saturday morning till 12.
Night trunking or a job with so many days on and so many days off is the other option.
Biker:
ady1:
mon-fri 5.30 p.m-11.30/12.00 ish
grantham-heywood distribution,change tri and back
grantham-basildon,change tri and back
grantham-glouster[jct12,downtons yard ],change tri and back
pay was 13.00 p.h,sounds good,was if you liked time at home,finish fri midnight-monday 17.30,finish midnight mon-fri,not back until 17.30,ive never had so much spare time ,pay of £13.00 p.h ,not bad at all.
but the problem was the top line was £400 p.w[thereabouts],50 hrs pay,so it was really £8.00 p.h,its just if you divide £400 by the 30 hrs you were doing you could say you were on £13.00.
my point is you say you want £9.00 p.h,you dont want many hours,are you content with 40x£9.00=360 p.w,50x£9.00=£450 p.w,if you are good.
i had a few other issues,but even though job was short hours,if you worked your pay out on 30 hrs you were on 13.00 p.h you still only earnt £400 gross at end of week.
instead of saying i want £9.00 p.h,short hours,id be saying i want £600 p.w for as short hours as i can get,cant understand this fixation on hourly rate,its what your top line/take home at end of week that matters,£10.00 p.h sounds good,but if its on gar 40 hrs p.w its not very good.
job by the way was evening trunking,not sure if job exists or not nowYeah, obviously i understand math :> 600£ for 40hrs of work, I surly wouldn’t mind that but i know in this job one comes at the price of another… and this is the biggest issue here ins’t it?
You see, I am 28yrs old, have no family nor mortgage to payoff but I have loads of interests and I get to conclusion that I am either spending life in cab (in the name of… not sure what) or make an use out of my life.
30 hours for 400£ would be close to perfect for me. This is what I am looking for. Any ideas about which doors to knock at?Thanks for all above.
the ist job i quoted was nightfreight,vac-lug tyre contract,grantham,while ago so no idea if they still do those runs,what they now pay.
2nd job[casual]was [oh dear do i have to say 
stobarts 
[if your still there 
],3 days casual would earn you minium of £271[3x10 hrs],if you included the fuel bonus youd get£286,if you did more than 10 hrs youd obviously earn more[[max 45 hrs],as youve got lots on it may also suit you as long as you give a weeks notice you can pretty much days you want[this is according to new casual lad]he said he had this on/that on and they said tell us week before what you can work and thats fine,i know your thinking casual,not gar,but they dont want agency anymore,theres always agency so your pretty much gar your 3 days,lad has been on 2 days for years and never missed a shift,worth a think anyway
ive not seen one for a while but they did used to have adverts up for 4 day drivers[not casual/regular],i know one who does sun-wed,one did tues-fri[think hes retired now],it was 4 days for 40 hrs pay,maybe worth ringing different firms and seeing if you could just do 3/4 days p.w