I like to think I’ve done my research into entering the industry. In reality I’ve barely scratched the surface.
I spoke to a training centre the other day hoping to get a better understanding, the ones you find on Google with the posh website. Well they were dinging bells on the call centre when they got someone to jump on board, like it was a stock brokerage! They would have answered my questions with answers I want to to hear.
But I don’t want that. I want honesty. I’m 23, and have family, house, bills, etc to pay for so this is a move not taken so lightly.
I appreciate as a newbie I will probably need to do the jobs the experienced don’t want to do and some times that may mean long hours.
But is it realistic of me to expect not to do trunking work and not be away?
Is it realistic to expect to eventually work say 40 hours per week (traffic allowing of course!)?
To the experienced truckers what’s the work life balance like to begin with and after a while?
And realistically what are the wages like?
I want to do this so bad but so cautious about my family too!
Have a look for Rog, anyone saying they’ve passed and he’ll no doubt be on congratulating them, for a link in his sig 're training schools, also you won’t find a bad review of the board sponsor Peter Smythe.
40 hours is very unrealistic. You can manage to avoid tramping, harder to avoid trunking. What is it you think you want to do for work?
albion:
Have a look for Rog, anyone saying they’ve passed and he’ll no doubt be on congratulating them, for a link in his sig 're training schools, also you won’t find a bad review of the board sponsor Peter Smythe.
So guys come on, let’s say I do this and get into driving what’s the work/life balance like for the family drivers out there who come home every night?
Thank you for the replies! I want to make the move I just need to make sure it’s right for my family.
40 hours is not at all unrealistic (despite what Albion says), particularly on Class 2 work. Likewise no nights out. In order to do this you need to avoid “general haulage” like the plague. There are any number of drivers on “own account” work for food service, heating oil, bins and loads of other stuff who never do nights out and rarely work more than 40 hours a week Mon-Fri. OK, you won’t be earning the big money (in reality hardly anyone driving a lorry is doing that) but £30k a year is easily achievable.
albion:
Have a look for Rog, anyone saying they’ve passed and he’ll no doubt be on congratulating them, for a link in his sig 're training schools, also you won’t find a bad review of the board sponsor Peter Smythe.
40 hours is very unrealistic. You can manage to avoid tramping, harder to avoid trunking. What is it you think you want to do for work?
Just my opinion Albion. I’ve done anything from 8 hours a week to about 70 hours a week. I decide what hours I work. So it can be done.
His best bet would be to get a job at a supermarket and never use POA. They will stop him working if his average gets above 48 hours - and he will spend a chunk of that sitting in a basic truck lying on the bed waiting for the trailer to finally be done.
Dave94:
But is it realistic of me to expect not to do trunking work and not be away?
Is it realistic to expect to eventually work say 40 hours per week (traffic allowing of course!)?
To the experienced truckers what’s the work life balance like to begin with and after a while?
And realistically what are the wages like?
I want to do this so bad but so cautious about my family too!
.
Go work for a builders merchant. Or a supermarket like I said. No nights out. The supermarket I’m at send a car to pick their guys up if the worst happens! They have a couple of brand new VW people carrier jobs just for that.
Work for a builders merchant doesn’t pay great. Around 28k a year tops really. Supermarket you will be looking at low to mid 30’s if you don’t want any over time. You might be semi forced to do some. But it would ballance itself out.
albion:
Have a look for Rog, anyone saying they’ve passed and he’ll no doubt be on congratulating them, for a link in his sig 're training schools, also you won’t find a bad review of the board sponsor Peter Smythe.
40 hours is very unrealistic. You can manage to avoid tramping, harder to avoid trunking. What is it you think you want to do for work?
Just my opinion Albion. I’ve done anything from 8 hours a week to about 70 hours a week. I decide what hours I work. So it can be done.
His best bet would be to get a job at a supermarket and never use POA. They will stop him working if his average gets above 48 hours - and he will spend a chunk of that sitting in a basic truck lying on the bed waiting for the trailer to finally be done.
Fair enough if you want to do agency, then you really can choose, I never think agency as it’s not something I come into contact with.
I still think wanting to work no more than 40 is hard work to find, it certainly cuts your options down. 48 is a doddle, plenty of 4 on 4 off shifts about, but not sure if that would suit the OP - I’m presuming they want weekends off.
TBH, I only know one class 2 lad that works on Brakes type deliveries and I know he does more than 40 hours, so I assumed that would apply to most jobs of that type.
For a new driver, I’d be thinking closer to what Albion was saying as you’ll likely get the jobs other people don’t want.
Figures below are very much averages but will give an idea.
Hours averages for class 2:
Builders merchants 6am to 5pm
Pallet networks 7am to 6pm
Food delivery 4am to 6pm (very variable)
General deliveries 3-6am to anything.
Pay (pre tax) and PAYE:
Builders £8 to £9 / hour
Food £8 to £9.50 / hour
Pallets £8.50 to £9
General £7 to £10 (occasionally)
There are better jobs out there but the majority you’re going to get will be 10 to 15 hours a day unless the delivery points are closed, eg: building sites. Thats more like 50 - 60 hours.
You could do agency and do whatever hours you want…at least thats the theory. What you might find us most will either lie to you about the hours or ignore you and not give you any work.
(Unless you’re a super agency worker that they are all apparently clammering to get onboard. )
If you do go agency, you want to be PAYE not the LTD or any of other tax fiddles. Unfortunately the really high pay rates you see are usually LTD so they don’t have to pay your tax etc.
I don’t want to put you off but give a realistic idea of what its like esp when you start out esp on class 2 when you have bills to pay, rather than some fantasy.
It can be good but just dont believe you’ll get rich off it and the hours can be awful esp as it could cost up to £2000 to get there.
Im contracted to 40 hours per week multi drop class 2. I am home every night and have every weekend off. My family come first in my job decisions. Some weeks i do over 40 hours others i do less so at the end of the month it evens itself out. You cant guarantee anything driving some days are long due to traffic or places i go to they arent on the ball.
After all this i love my job and because i love my job its a break for me when i am at work from 5 kids and the missus. And i want more hours because i love driving and love the money. Which is why i want my class 1. I have dreams to be a heavy haulage driver dont ask me why i just like challenges.
Once you get through the “newbie” stage and start getting to pick more there are some good jobs about.
I’ve got a cushty class 1 trunk, start at 09.00 and done by 16.00 daily (allowing for the occasional traffic hold ups and bad planning!) it’s salaried job and although not amazing it certainly isn’t bad for what I do.
I’ve got the good lady and 3 little ones at home and this job has given me a much greater work / life balance. The pallet network I started out on wasn’t so kind to my quality of life though!! [emoji16]
UselessForce:
Once you get through the “newbie” stage and start getting to pick more there are some good jobs about.
I’ve got a cushty class 1 trunk, start at 09.00 and done by 16.00 daily (allowing for the occasional traffic hold ups and bad planning!) it’s salaried job and although not amazing it certainly isn’t bad for what I do.
I’ve got the good lady and 3 little ones at home and this job has given me a much greater work / life balance. The pallet network I started out on wasn’t so kind to my quality of life though!! [emoji16]
There are lots of short hours jobs about, and when we say short 40 hours is quite short in lorry world, there will always be long days and there will always be planners trying to push you to get more out of you.
Obviously don’t expect to be earning the kind of money someone on a good job doing more hours will knock up, and the actual money in your packet will look less because there will be no subsistence payments either.
Local jobs like builder merchants don’t pay fantastically but generally an easy going job, skips and tippers and parcels could pay more but you’ll be flying about, food especially multi drop will pay better but there will be lots of ■■■■■■■ and cage/pallet handling.
The one job i wouldn’t touch is pallet distribution, which IMO is the worst of all combinations, flying about the phone never stopping and the pay generally awful, but some of the lads doing it seem to enjoy it.
One size does not fit all in this game, you’ll have to take what you can get at first to get some experience, same as all of us had to.
In the 2 years I’ve been a] driving and b] looking at the vacancy demographic I can say that 99% of job vacancies are agency promoted positions. 75% of that is class 1. Class 2 might earn you a flat £10/hour (no o/t bonus except for he weekend) and class 1 might get you 12 (as an agency driver). Agencies tend to regularly regurgitate the same jobs as they are so ■■■■ no-one stays that long. They tend to be home delivery jobs/heavy handball. High injury risk jobs where YOU won’t get paid if you’r off injured. Avoid. You’ll also see a ■■■■ load of turn-over of agency companies. It’s because the industry is now saturated with the leeches and there aren’t enough jobs to go round. That means pay rates are depressed. It also means there are a lot of ■■■■■■■■■ with no credibility. I would urge you to to research every agency before even applying for a job. Would you like to work for a week then find the ■■■■■■■■■■ you enrolled with have dodged their obligation to pay you? Even the logical recruitment solutions of this world are not immune to ineptitude. And that’s why they are without another driver
But I digress.
My current job is a 17 plate 18T actros tramping kitchens to everywhere. It’s by far the best job I’ve ever had despite the utter ■■■■■■■ I’ve had to share a cab with, the regular 15 hour days and the 60 mile round trip to work and back. As it happens I drive my last run this sunday as I’m ■■■■■■■ sick to the back teeth of all the ■■■■ that I have no control over. Oh, and I’ve dumped the agent as well.
I’d suggest you set up email alerts from the main job sites. You’ll see quite how much ■■■■ you’re up against.
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