I have been working as a postman for over twenty years but for the last four years or so I have been doing agency work with a view to leaving Royal Mail.I have been getting regular work on my days off and holidays and I really enjoy it. Being a postman is starting to take its toll on my body now so I thought I would start looking for a full time driving job. I shouldn’t have bothered. I earn £9.21 an hour on the post and never work my full hours but some of these haulage firms are offering £6.50. The best I have seen so far is £8.00.Are these wages par for the course ?
If you searched around you probably could find a higher hourly rate than what your’e on now but there won’t be many jobs around especially in your area. Stay put for now would be my advice but there is no harm in looking.
If you’ve been a postie for 20 years you’d be mad to throw it in now. I have two friends who were both posties - one retired early on health grounds and was able to take his pension early - now happy as Larry. The other was offered voluntary redundancy which he took with both hands - the terms were far more generous than he would have got in many industries. With the future changes in the Post Office you never know what might happen, but switching to driving you will never get as good a deal these days.
How about trying to move across to parcelforce or rm trucking?
i was a postie for 3 years before i done my hgv, used to think i hated the job even though i was home by 10.30 some days, could pick me eldest boy up from school plan things for the afternoon but all i ever wanted to be was a lorry driver now im doin what i wanted but hardly ever see the mises never get to pick the kids up and somtimes think i wish id stayed a postie. my advice would be to stick it out fella its not always greener on the other side.
I took VR december 2010. 
At our office, all our work was being given away to other offices with the result that weekend docket was being scrapped, with weekday stuff only being available on a leavecover/last minute sick cover basis - pretty similar to agency drivers that were going on. 
Yup, the hourly rate is better than one can get at most agencies it’s true. Only problem for me was the recent crackdown on making time, and the crushing of SA written once written into nearly all duties. I worked out that if I was going to end up on the RM network driver’s basic pay, then where was I going to be 2 years down the line when interest rates might well rise, and there’s still no docket? Couple this with the firm unexpectedly offering me a 23 month VR deal which they made quite clear was only available on a “take it now, or never be offered it again” basis. 
Like you, I like the agency work I was already doing in the holidays (supermarkets not so) and I had the extra “low bar” of only wanting to drop my hours to 2 shifts per week so I can “get some life in before I die”! 
Rates around here (Kent) one would think are the best in the country, BUT in fact there’s just a higher range. The lowest rate hearabouts is £7.00 PH for dustcart work (no other rates available, as no one can limbo low enough to get that contract!) ranging upto £10ph for short-notice single shift weekday nights. Some firms pay extra at weekends, many don’t.
I won’t commute for less than £10ph nowdays, not with the price of fuel and wasted time commuting and all. The best rates available for the commuters around here seem to be around £13.50 but we’re still talking weekends & nights.
If monday-friday days is all you’re after, then £7-£8 for general hauliers with about £9 for supermarkets seems the norm of what I’ve seen so far in the 14 months since I left RM. 
Decide what pay you’ll hold out for, and what conditions you’ll put up with for getting it. For example, I find myself working weekends & nights, and often end up doing a commute to get the plummier rates. The lowest I ever worked for so far was £8.00 for DHL which I did as a “favour” for the agency. That favour never got returned, and now I’ve left their books, but not before getting my moneysworth out of them over the summer!
I get very little 5 day blocks given me, but that’s cool as I only want a 2 day week average anyway. I last did some 5 day blocks on the runup to Christmas with Fedex (£10ph weekday nights) but the commute for that was a killer (3 hours a day!), so I’m in no hurry to do it again! I occasionally find myself doing the odd full week to keep my average hourage between 16 & 24 per week. As of April I’ve got to up my game to 24-30 hours per week, which may well make things a bit awkward around here with the constant pressure from the agencies to put in more of the lower paid hours in! 
Since leaving RM, I take home on average £43 pw less than I would have got from RM network driver basic had I stayed. As I’m only working the 2 days, I guess I’ve bought 4 days a week of life back for the loss of £43, so it’s upto the beholder to decide if I am better off or not! I feel I am, as time is more important to me than money these days. I also have a young family (despite pushing 50!) and you can’t put a price on quality time spent doing kits, martial arts, & other after school clubs with your kid that FT people have no hope of doing, as they’re not available during that time of the day whatever shift you’re on…
You’re not wrong for wanting to make an informed decision here! - Research your local scenario carefully as you are before taking the plunge… The only regret I’ve had since leaving is I wished a lower proportion of the settlement had been spent on the house like that card you get in Monopoly… “Make General Repairs”… but that’s the price you pay when you bought the place in a run-down state to start with alas. I never had a hope in getting a house in this part of the world without some backdoor bargain to start with, and that situation persists in Kent as it has done for as long as I can remember! 
Information to non-RM drivers - If you are a network driver operating out of a Vehicle Operating Centre (VOC) then you may well find yourself being sent to do a parcel force run to coventry, a hightop trunking run to London, or maybe a trunk to DIRFT (Crick to most of you!) with maybe a customer collection at the start of your duty. That’s assuming of course you are working a C+E duty!
There are some licence holders who choose to put mail through letterboxes, or stand over a sorting frame all day. Some even go management! 
The work is fine, as agencies going into RM know. It’s the ever-falling wages and the way they clip 90 minutes off a 12 hour shift that got my goat! Yes, that means working a 60 hour spread to get paid for a 52.5 hour week. The optimum shift to work as an agency for RM is 10hr50mins for which you only get deducted the standard hour. 12hr+ still gets deducted 90 mins even if you are agency. Most of the plummier runs are incorporated into the 10-11 hour shifts anyway, but that’s only my opinion as I liked the trunking side of things, and didn’t like b-ggering about in the seemingly ceaseless rain doing collections!
Don’t leave unless you get the offer of VR especially after 20 years service. You need to ask your manager if there are likely to be any offers coming your way in the near future but, more importantly do you have the seniority to take VR.
And don’t forget to factor in the fringe benefits like sick pay, pension and extra holidays.
The RM depot i work at has had a few drivers take voluntary redundancy last autumn, however a good 1/2 of them are now back as agency drivers. They have seen the real trucking world and don’t much like it. RM hgv work is a vey cushy job really. And quite well paid. That’s why there is a lot of long service people there. Its just some of the managers that make the job hard, and some of my colleagues as well.
Thanks for all the replies guys. I think I am best staying as I am for now. Whether I can get voluntary redundancy only time will tell. I’ll keep you informed.
prdcb1:
The RM depot i work at has had a few drivers take voluntary redundancy last autumn, however a good 1/2 of them are now back as agency drivers. They have seen the real trucking world and don’t much like it. RM hgv work is a vey cushy job really. And quite well paid. That’s why there is a lot of long service people there. Its just some of the managers that make the job hard, and some of my colleagues as well.
So much for national aggreements! Part of the VR deal that was obviously personalised to me by the looks of it was that I could not come back even as agency for 2 years!
Yeah, tell me about it!!
A guy I know just left the railway, he was a manager. He took VR and for his time of service and grade would have come away with 40K give or take.
He was back just a fortnight later for an agency as a “consultant” (whatever the F that means) and he’s on about 24 quid an hour doing more or less the same job.