Hi everyone,
Having had a look at various topic’s on the euro driving forum, and in particular the one on
“How desperate are you for European work…?”
What do you think the average weekly wage is or should be !!! I would think that if you went to work
for a Polish or Hungarian etc company paying £50/£60 per day, then you would be running very long hours and out
for 6/8 weeks at a time or more, and would you do it.
I would think that one of the reasons why the wages are not brilliant, is that the few UK hauliers running into
Europe and using UK english drivers is, that they are trying to compete with the Poles/Hungarians/Romanians etc
whom are able to run cheaper, how, I do not know, but they do and they quote on jobs that we are unable to get
anywhere near, i.e. Hemel Hempstead to Athens, being done by Romanians and Bulgarians Euro’s 3500 and they
have to pay all the ferries and tolls the same as us, Midlands to Milan Euro’s 850.
So, what’s the answer !! and no, it’s not employ Poles etc, even thought they all good workers.
Not hard to figure how they do it. You stick two of them in the cab and pay them what one british driver would cost. They are happy to be away for 6 or 8 weeks at a time. They can borrow money cheaper than we can, there depot costs are a lot less than ours, road tax, insurance etc, all cheaper. It all adds up. How do you compete, you can’t on general work. If your lucky you may find a little niche job where you can charge enough to make a go of it, but volume work, forget it. The only thing you can do is if you can’t beat them, join them. Set up a company in a low cost country.
Actually E3500 is pretty good for Athens. Take it on and i will get you an ostie to do it for E2900.
Suedehead:
Midlands to Milan (pay own ferry +tolls, how much is the Frejus or Blanc nowadays? ffs) for €850
The blanc is 283 euros one way , we were offered work from redcar to italy for £1200 and also dumfries to udine for £1400 , and i politely declined
Yep, “thanks but no thanks”. You might as well park them up as go skint taking on loads that don’t pay.
A mate of mine had 2 loads form Glos’ area to Northern France (St Omer area I think) and got them done by a big French company for a litttle over £700 for the two!!
The same bloke had loads of ‘dry goods’ from Valencia area last time we spoke (last September??) paying £3,000 + to Lanc’s area, this sounds like a far better rate than the export to France.
What you don’t seem to understand is that it is a market. The prices are dictated by supply and demand, not the cost of doing the job. £350 to northern france is decent money. Most people budget for probably having to cross back over the channel empty. As for Valencia, you will never get 3 grand for dry freight. You might just get near to that with a fridge in the 2 weeks before christmas. Valencia to north of england, you would do well to get £16 to 1800 tops.
Ex Haulier:
What you don’t seem to understand is that it is a market.
I didn’t say I don’t understand?
Ex Haulier:
As for Valencia, you will never get 3 grand for dry freight. You might just get near to that with a fridge in the 2 weeks before christmas. Valencia to north of england, you would do well to get £16 to 1800 tops.
I was offered that for up to 6 loads a month, from a UK importer. Or am I a liar??
I wish i had a pound for every load i had been “offered”. Should of taken it on then, could of made some money. Wouldn’t have to “park em up” then would you.
hi,
you got to get down there first to get the better rates comong home, the rates out are low but you have to look at the bigger picture, its the round trip figure that counts… as for wages, 90hrs in a fortnight buggers us up, if a driver does a spain one week and uses over 50hrs then what can he do the next, not a bloody lot! So how do you pay him, you got to be carefull where to send him as you dont want a driver stuck from thursday evening till 00:00 monday in the middle of nowhere because of the 90hr rule… on that basis we pay £460 in the bank every week which costs in excess of £600, cant pay any more.
With regards to other posts on wages i personally think very litte of the a man who would laugh at another mans wage, international haulage is a lifestyle choice for most drivers and if they are happy with the wage that is offered than that is their choice… No one should insult them on this basis…
So £460 nett, £600 gross. I take it that includes night out money ?. So i would guess that you are paying them 6 or 7 nights out at say, £25. So what true average hourly rate does that mean they are being paid ?.
Hi,
Your not far wrong, thats the wages, not a lot more in the job, if one week is busy, with 24 off, they can be done by wednesday night or thursday morning the next week, you know transport, its hard to plan, if it runs into friday then thats the job… 45hrs rest every 2nd week doesnt help, 2x 24hrs then a long weekend was a much easier way of working…
Ex Haulier:
I wish i had a pound for every load i had been “offered”. Should of taken it on then, could of made some money. Wouldn’t have to “park em up” then would you.
Park what up? I sold up in August 2006.
This wasn’t some faceless individual on the end of a phone offering ‘hypothetical’ loads, it was a personal friend who has freight moving all around Europe and was trying to tempt me back into the job. It didn’t work, although I was tempted enough to look into outgoing loads and was shocked at the rates.
Ex Haulier:
£350 to northern france is decent money.
more like fools money, why do that when you can load for Holland 3 hours further north and get 3 times as much as least ? plus a better chance of a reload from Holland or Belgium on top
A grand UK to Holland, your having a laugh mate. You’d be lucky to get that to go to Barcelona. Never mind the fact that loads from the UK to Holland are about as rare as hen’s teeth.
Ex Haulier:
A grand UK to Holland, your having a laugh mate. You’d be lucky to get that to go to Barcelona. Never mind the fact that loads from the UK to Holland are about as rare as hen’s teeth.
as the post was about from Spain to England I naturally assumed you were talking about Spain to North of France
LRM:
hi,
With regards to other posts on wages i personally think very litte of the a man who would laugh at another mans wage, international haulage is a lifestyle choice for most drivers and if they are happy with the wage that is offered than that is their choice… No one should insult them on this basis…
Ex Haulier:
If you could get £3000 from Valencia you didn’t need export loads !. If you could get £3000 from Valencia i’d buy some myself.
So you think £3,000 is a decent ‘round trip’ rate to Valencia!! perhaps that’s why you’re an “ex haulier” eh??
There’s no “if’s”, you obviously don’t believe me so you can ‘go & roll your hoop’. I won’t reply to you again on this subject as you obviously think I’ve made this up.
Ex haulier tbh with ongoing costs fuel etc etc
only got to look on brittany website and look at fuel surcharge for spanish boat)
true roundtrip cost before proffit looking at around £3300 sterling these days to valencia /murcia
and to get round the 90 hr rule i now use santander at lease one way only way to get 2 in a fortnight to keep within 90hrs
even going cherbourg/ caen very very toght to do 2 trips legally dont know how some are doing it calais but that not my problem
i have reg work fridges admittly where im on 2600 gbp home from october to april from one client
and befiore xmas with adhoc rates for others was getting 3400 to 4250 gbp
ad hoc at mo been good for jan and feb averaging between 2600 & 2800 gbp
yeah export rates are crap but like lrh said got to look at the whole roundtrip easy for people who dont know the job to say i would run to spain for 1200gbp etc but look at the whole roundtrip and makes sense
with regards to euro wages my drivers are on average i would say around £500 to 520 in bank every week yeah ok long hours etc but its the lifestyle and the way of life beets running uk that y i stioll drive myself aswell and only do euro work alot more laid back
But with employer ni hol pay etc that costs me over £700 per week and tbh not enough more in job but yes they are running round in good kit all 2- 4 yrs old aand
