Does anyone get paid more than the fuel they use?
I just filled up with £800 that I reckon might last me a week.
stu675:
Does anyone get paid more than the fuel they use?
I just filled up with £800 that I reckon might last me a week.
I fill up about 130l every day after my run (starting from full). Don’t get paid nowhere nearly as much of course nor have I ever expected to even when diesel was £1.10-ish 2 years ago
stu675:
Does anyone get paid more than the fuel they use?
I just filled up with £800 that I reckon might last me a week.
My run was 40/50 litres a day. Was on 31k then so I think I was being paid more (just about). W
Used to be about 3/4hours drive time and 6-10 other work/breaks.
Juddian:
2 weeks training and £2/3000 paid out does not mean you are a lorry driver, if you pass the tests it entitles you to a licence to drive HGVs, that’s when you start learning the job.
It takes years if you want to learn, some don’t want to and they never become skilled lorry drivers with all that entails because they have no interest in the job, we all see them every day of the week performing as expected, most of them resplendent in stitched on hivis whilst behind the wheelYes there are people in our industry who haven’t progressed beyond new driver standard, but for those who up their game and learn and, dare i say this, actually go out of their way to be professional drivers, it doesn’t take long before those who put some effort in get noticed * and sooner or later the opportunity to move onto better things materialises because the competition just isn’t there, those once dead mans shoes jobs really are up for grabs because even they are finding it hard to recruit the right sort.
It isn’t all ■■■■ poor pay or 80 hour weeks to make a living wage, though agreed those jobs are about and they should be treated as a stepping stone only or an emergency job to keep the wolf from the door, those sorts of jobs do not deserve the better drivers, let them enjoy the fruits of their business practice, wrecked lorries and loads and similar damage to other vehicles and anything else that gets in their way.
There is better out there, so ask yourself what can you do to get your foot in the door.
- new recruit, young former EE chap, polite efficient friendly, takes an interest in fine tuning the way he goes about the job by asking the right questions and listening and is upping his game rapidly, he’s been the subject of very positive reports to management including from yours truly (i believe in pointing out good work above and beyond expectation. Poor workers? well i ain’t a grass and the suits get paid to run the job), he’ll do well where i work and good luck to him.
As someone who enjoys the job and also takes pride in my work I agree with what you are saying. But, the same applies to most jobs. An electrician, for example, doesn’t go to college for 2 years, get their qualification and become Nikola Tesla, it takes years to learn the job I’d imagine.
The difference is, a potential lorry driver can spend a couple of grand and then 2 weeks later can walk straight into a £30,000 a year job and then moan that they’re underpaid. I don’t know of another career where that’s possible.
Genuine question Juddian - do you agree with the op, that the £31,000 or £15/16 p/h that they quoted is rubbish money for your bog standard, unspecialised lorry driving job?
I don’t normally involve myself in these kinds of posts, the job is what it is, good money for some, crap for others, depends on your skills or sometimes your attitude. I’ve been in this game for near on 35 yrs, tried most things, enjoyed some, hated others,always tried to up-skill and chase the money but if I was fed up I’d move on. This year I had a small medical issue which deprived me of my licence so I found another job to fill in, labouring for an agricultural fencing company. This week I got word from DVLA that my licence is returned but I’ve decided to stick at my new job. I’m going to re-train hopefully as a fencer. The money is not as great but it’s fair, I’m working a 44hr week instead of 65plus and I’m loving it. Moral of the story is- if the op hates driving and the conditions so much, go do something else
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
crunch13:
do you agree with the op, that the £31,000 or £15/16 p/h that they quoted is rubbish money for your bog standard, unspecialised lorry driving job?
31k is from a 45 hour/week job ad (didn’t say if breaks are paid I’d bet not) which comes to £13.20 per hour
The 15/16 is for nights tho I’ve not even seen 16 advertised highest is 15 and that’s flat rate with no OT/weekend bonus
Just clarifying
Oil change labor is charged @ £50-55 per hour btw riddle me this
Couple rampant inflation with an overdue recession and things suddenly get way funnier…
crunch13:
Juddian:
Genuine question Juddian - do you agree with the op, that the £31,000 or £15/16 p/h that they quoted is rubbish money for your bog standard, unspecialised lorry driving job?
£31k basic for a 40 hour week isn’t to be sneezed at, £31k if it involves some 14 hour days where they then send you home lunch time Friday so most of the overtime you already accrued is voided would be not so good.
£15 or £16 an hour isn’t bad either as a standard rate for weekdays but if you’re still on that as an overtime, night, weekend rate, then it isn’t so great.
Much depends on where you live what the work is and what the hours are, if you’re out in the poorer parts of the country then those rates might be as much as you could ever hope for currently, in the golden triangle or one of the other transport heavy areas and it’s probably not that great.
I have sympathy with the OP, however i don’t think this is specifically a transport issue, we are in deep deep trouble in this country as is much of the world that has been mismanaged by corrupt criminal and sometimes simply stupid polticians and presidents, basically our leaders in the west have bankrupted us all…you’d think people might actually wake up this time and realise that elections really are very very important and voting for who you are told is the least dangerous of the unelectable hasn’t worked for decades and, wake up at the back, it won’t ever work.
For many years our treacherous govts have been importing people by the hundreds of thousands a year into this country, part legal and part illegals, all those people have needed to be housed and given benefits if they didn’t have bona fide genuine jobs to go to paying taxes and national insurance etc, cough, any of those with proper jobs have of course bought into the property market, this uncontrolled and unsustainable immigration has destabilised and distorted normal property prices as we have all witnessed, some met this with dismay some with glee for the moment, our leaders have allowed thousands of acres of prime arable land to be concreted over for housing, shopping/leasure centres and the inevitable huge distribution centres and warehouses for imported food and plastic/electronic chinese tat…no factories gone up you notice?
The years of to put it mildly mismanagement, to put it truthfully deliberate national destruction, have brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy with national debt at stratospheric levels.
Then the fake covid scam arrived, and the ever prudent govt we elected (they’re all the same by the way, the House is full to the rafters of self serving useless bought buggars) went on a drunken sailor spending spree that has put the final nails in the national coffin, and with small businesses still folding at record rates.
I hope by the way that those who thought Furlough and the ‘free’ money, and the endless sick days on full pay because ‘self isolating etc’ was such a brilliant wheeze to be milked are realising it’s they who have now got the bill and not good old Rishi…but those of us who never went along with it never benefitted and never wanted to have also got the bill, handy that eh.
Anyway, the costs to live are going through the roof, the new normal is arriving and no, that £15/16 an hour isn’t going to cut it.
All of us that genuinely work for a living are going to have to change the way we live over the coming months and years.
I know you didn’t ask for that rant, sorry mate, but it’s a complicated issue and any sods guess what the WEF, or rather the WHO whom Bunter is about to sign our sovereignty over to, have planned next for us.
We’ve had Pestilence, we’re heading into War, presumably Famine will be unleashed soon and inevitably Death.
My wife works for NHS as a nursing assistant, without being rude her wage is garbage, the NHS are terrible payers. Her colleagues are registered nurses, they earn about 20k a year less than me. Her sister (medical not RL 
), who has decades of experience just about earns what I do. The only decent wages in NHS are for doctors/consultants, the majority of staff get a low wage and have had pay rises frozen for years.
I may work a few hours a week more, but as Conor says, considering I spend 18-20 hours a week on bunk watching netflix or napping, I know what job Id rather do.
From the decade Ive been in driving, I think you get the job you ‘deserve’ in HGV driving. If you are a good driver, do things properly, are reliable, the good jobs will come.
If you are unreliable, accident prone, moaning all the time etc, you will probably be in the garbage jobs noone else wants or will do.
orys:
[. Today it’s often 200 000 times or even more. It’s absurd.
If it were true! [emoji23] No CEO earns £5Billion !!
Even Elon Musk is only on 20,000 times, next highest on 4,000 times.
Juddian:
I know you didn’t ask for that rant, sorry mate, but it’s a complicated issue and any sods guess what the WEF, or rather the WHO whom Bunter is about to sign our sovereignty over to, have planned next for us.
Feel free to rant, it’s a forum 
The state of the country and the disparity between rich and poor is another argument entirely. So is whether or not £31,000 is enough for a good lifestyle.
My only point is that compared to other careers and considering education/skills/qualifications/training required - lorry driving is not badly paid.
And it really, really gets my back up when drivers use the classic line “it’s only a couple of quid more than warehouse work or gatehouse security” like they’re levels above. We’re lorry drivers, not nuclear physicists, we shouldn’t be looking down our noses at anyone. (Op, not you)
ETS:
crunch13:
do you agree with the op, that the £31,000 or £15/16 p/h that they quoted is rubbish money for your bog standard, unspecialised lorry driving job?31k is from a 45 hour/week job ad (didn’t say if breaks are paid I’d bet not) which comes to £13.20 per hour
The 15/16 is for nights tho I’ve not even seen 16 advertised highest is 15 and that’s flat rate with no OT/weekend bonusJust clarifying
Oil change labor is charged @ £50-55 per hour btw riddle me this
No idea what relevance that has
Presumably out of that £50-55 per hour the garage owner is paying staff wages and all the overheads that come with running a garage, whilst also making a profit so I don’t understand your point?
To clarify, I do now earn a bit more than your example hourly rate. But it’s taken me 8 years, I’ve had to upskill and I work bloody hard for it. I’ve also had several jobs that paid less than that but instead of complaining and saying that I deserve more, I’ve put myself out there and earned it.
ETS:
Conor:
…the usual crapload typically found in every Connor postYes yes, I know you make 50 grand a year (before tax) for 32 hours/week mon-fri but 90% of the drivers out there are working crap hours (too many and or too un-sociable or downright detrimental as a ton studies have shown for nights or rotating shift patterns) for crap money.
Because they choose to. There’s enough work out there and employers desperate enough for drivers that they are willing to accept someone who only wants to do 40hrs a week that those who are sick of the long hours can change and if it comes to it go on agency.
I choose not to work 50+hrs a week, 5 days a week so I don’t. I do 8-10hrs a night, four nights a week. And if I want to do less than that I do. The flip side of that is I accept that there will be times when I’m wanting to work but none is available but I see that as a price worth paying for the freedom I now have. But you continue as you are as you clearly like to keep wallowing in your own self pity, whining to anyone who is daft enough to listen. If you don’t like your lot only you can change it, all the ■■■■■■■ and whining in the world won’t change a thing.
ETS:
police/NHS who get a ton of benefits and crazy OT rates
Being a police officer is not the cool job you think it is. I was a Met police officer for 15 years before I resigned and I would not recommend it to anyone these days - crap job for crap pay.
I suppose it depends on what you drive, who you work for, where you work etc etc.
Also market forces dictate to a degree how much someone gets paid. What employer really wants to pay their staff as much as they can? It’s more
like how much they can get away with whilst running a business.
I agree that most people could probably pass a
Hgv test, if they can afford to stump up a few grand. Within 2 weeks they can gain a license.
Someone mentioned the Police- again anti social hours, stress, and average earnings of about 28k.Although they do get a decent pension, they have to be in the job a long time before earning decent money.
It does seem that most jobs have steadily got worse over the last 15 years or so, irrespective of what industry they work in.
Also bear in mind that house prices have trebled in the last two decades, followed by the raise in the state pension meaning that everyone has bigger mortgages and works longer.
I just try and take each day as it comes and make the best of it.
Not read all the posts on here but…
yes you only need two weeks of training and so on, but it can be a tough job too, dangerous, unhealthy and what other job has enforcment officers ready to fine you for minor infredgments. You have to contend with bad weather, long ,anti social hours, starting at early hours or working into the night, or overnight, traffic and strings of regulations. What other job expects you to sleep in your work place without pay?
A minor mistake or laps of consentration could see you in court or in jail.
£16 per hour is OK, overtime at £2.50 extra paid after 45 hours is a rip off so is £1 extra for working nights and Saturdays!
I have only recently started driving again, its a good some of the time, but there are times I wish I was doing something else.
ETS:
Conor:
UPS won’t even say their and job description reads like it was written by a 9 year old on fentonyl van
I work for UPS, which part of the company are you talking about? Logistics? Small pack? Feeder? Freight?
I can tell you I work days and for 48 hours I earn a lot more than the other companies you quoted.
stu675:
orys:
[. Today it’s often 200 000 times or even more. It’s absurd.If it were true! [emoji23] No CEO earns £5Billion !!
Even Elon Musk is only on 20,000 times, next highest on 4,000 times.
You are thinking on national level only apparently.
There are big companies whos bosses earn several millions per year and they employ people in third world countries who are paid just a few dollars per 14 hours work day.
^^^yes, true, got you .
I retired from the Prison Service sixteen years ago as an Officer on £27,000 pa for a 39 hour week, three years later I went back to HGV One driving at around £17,000 for the same number of hours. That equates to £13.30 per hour or £8.65 per hour.