Don’t know if this question has been asked before, but here goes.
A post on a recent thread suggested that if we wanted to earn a better rate that we should go and get a trade.
When I consider some of the places I’m expected to get a trailer into I’d like to think the job we do is skilled.
Or would you disagree. Could anyone do it and we are simply steering wheel attendants and unskilled- and that wages reflect this.
Just curious to know what the general opinion is on this.
I don’t consider driving HGVs to be a particularly skilled job in the normal sense of the word, though some degree of skill is required to do the job right I would say it requires experience and common sense more than anything else, I don’t consider myself to be just a steering wheel attendant so I would say that it does require some degree of aptitude but lets be honest, you don’t exactly need to be brain of Britain do you.
And yes most people could do it, not sure how competently though 
I’ll await the barrage of outrage 
tachograph:
I’ll await the barrage of outrage
Outrage
OUTRAGE!
no but seriously I do think its skilled, just like a tradesman, anybody can be an electrician, it just takes time to learn how to do it, I think the same is of any LGV driver.
Anybody could do it but they’d need training and time to learn how to do it.
It certainly requires a good degree of tolerance and excellent depth perception skills - something which not everybody has.
I’m sure there are more examples but, although its generally a very easy job, it only becomes so once you are reasonably competent.
Alex
I think it is a job that most people could do but it takes time and experience to be any good at it so I would say its a a skilled job.
Semi-skilled IMHO.
semi skilled
but a lot more important
than the POOR doctors nurses police fireman
we are needed everyday
not just when the ■■■■ its the fan
i’d go with semi skilled.
my boy can do my job, i can’t do his without a few years training.
i’ll put my tin hat on and state what i’ve stated before,
we’re labourers with a license, with a few exeptions, nothing more nothing less
your answer is tongue in cheek, isn’t it hitch
hitch:
semi skilled
but a lot more important
than the POOR doctors nurses police fireman
we are needed everyday
not just when the [zb] its the fan
Yeah alot more important… not.
I agree semi skilled, but its not rocket science is it. Pass a test and your there. no need for continual training or anything.
Changed me mind with what I was gonna say, wrong context. 
tachograph:
And yes most people could do it, not sure how competently though
you need only look at the driving ‘skills’ of a fair proportion of truckers to see that most people can do it, although some can do it better than others of course.
Scarab:
It certainly requires a good degree of tolerance and excellent depth perception skills - something which not everybody has.
Again going from the ‘driving’ of a fair proportion of truckers I would say that tolerance and perception skills aren’t exactly a pre-requisite to do the job. How many Mr Aggresives with a huge ‘i hate everyone because i am better than them all’ chip on both shoulders are there loose behind the wheel of an artic? too many, that’s for sure.
Its semi-skilled at the very best - four half days training and a test on the fifth is all you need to be able to call yourself a ‘trucker’.
Unskilled labourer you can teach anyone to drive a truck after that comes the learning process not everyone can be a teacher which I would say IS a skilled job.
Perhaps we should discuss what CRITERIA defines a skilled from an unskilled vocation. 
For me it depends on the level of driving your at, it can start from novice up to skilled depending on your experience and type of vehicle you operate. When you first start driving your on the bottom rung of the ladder usually and you climb by learning the job and usually moving on to a better job as your skills improve,(your apprenteship as such). As we know the driving is just one aspect of our work, we rope and sheet, warwick and chain, we use low loaders, Hiabs, Tankers, car transporters etc, all skills that we must learn well to progress. bearing all this in mind I think that we would be selling ourselves short if we believed we were anything else but skilled.
Semi Skilled…at the moment.
Unskilled is something that you can drag someone off the streets and get them doing with minimal instruction.
Semi Skill is a job that requires specialist skills and knowledge but not a vocational qualification (and no, a HGV licence doesn’t count as that qualification).
Skilled is a job that requires specialist skills and knowledge and a qualification or recognised time served apprenticeship.
My answer would be yes.
Driving the unit is only 50% of the job it takes experience and knowledge to do this consitently, safley and promptly.
The you need to know, have i done this within the law Tacho and working time ?
The other skills a good driver will have is customer Service, Negotiation (or how to get unloaded promptly by the beligerant forklift driver !), complex paperwork, communication back to base, (eg. proactive, my load is going to be late?).
Not a bad set of skills to have !
Time and again transport managers will call and repeatedly ask for the drivers that are the full package and put themselves out to give them work.
If you haven’t already guessed i work at an agency !
If you haven’t already guessed i work at an agency !
Occupation: Recruitment Consultant
We have another agency consultant (an Ex-trucker) on this site who did a nice Q&A thread for us - THE AGENCY INSIDER (Link)
Semi-skilled, i’d imagine most people with spacial awareness could do this job with some decent training.
If I had a job driving, I’d consider myself a Professional driver. That would make me Skilled, wouldn’t it?
Conor:
Semi Skilled…at the moment.Semi Skill is a job that requires specialist skills and knowledge but not a vocational qualification (and no, a HGV licence doesn’t count as that qualification).
So when the CPC comes in we’ll be skilled? 
If skilled means something that requires a lot of training then yes we are skilled, its just that we are thrown in at the deep end and expected to gain our skills as we muddle along, training ourselves as we go, hopefully not breaking too much or killing anyone on the way.
A stonemason is considered skilled, but is given the benefit of an apprenticeship, hell I can break rocks now but dont know the subtle parts that would make me a stonemason.
I still dont consider myself a professional driver, but I now know a lot more than I did 3 months ago when I passed my test and started driving for a living.