I keep hearing of big money out there £1000 a week , I’m aware of big money in heavy haulage and oversized , but what about general haulage I was listening to a bloke on 5 live saying the cost to get a container delivered
To his business has doubled since last year partly down to brexit and driver shortage , but has this rise in prices been passed onto the driver any container lads want to chime in also bulk haulage with night out money and tax paid what can you bring in on a good week £££
Have you not heard?
Most of them are on ‘‘Good Money’’ aint they?..(if you can stand listening to them without making an excuse and rushing off. 
)
Yeh the amount at the end is ‘good,’ but it’s the hours equating to a week and a half’s in a week done to earn it that suddenlly makes it a poor wage, but many are far too thick or brainwashed to see the true picture.
Basically if you drive for an Own Account operator and/or (dare I say it) a Union backed firm, with a decent pay structure, you will be on decent money.
If say £ 11 an hour is worked at 60 hours straight through, the difference between a pay rate of 40 hrs + time and a half (as it once was) is about 110 quid a week, 440 a month, orcabout 5 and a half k a year (top of my head so just an estimate) that is the difference between what most of us are making and what we SHOULD be making.
(Sorry to shatter the illusions of the hard of thinking btw)
In a nutshell driving in General.Haulage on UK only, is pure crap… as far as making good money goes.
I know lads who claim to be £1000 a week on general, but when you look at the bigger picture as Robroy say it not so good.
Max hours, a bit of a bonus for running out Sunday, 5 sometimes 6 nights out, a bit of bonus if they moffat unload, a bit more if they unload anther truck at there drop with the moffat, a bit of allowance for this and that.
There is no good money in general haulage other than by working every waking hour - you literally earn the money because you’re doing three 15hr shifts a week, two to three 13hr shifts with four or five nights out. The good money where you can actually earn a grand or not far off with doing more reasonable 9-10hr days is either in very specialised stuff or in own contract haulage where a company such as a manufacturing company run their own fleet of lorries not for profit. If that company also happens to have a location in the “golden triangle” or the south east even better as they tend to run parity wages throughout the company which is great for us living further away from London.
I’m lucky enough to be at such a place, it pays about 40-50% more than general haulage rates in the county. For 47hrs a week and home every night I take home the same as my mate on general who leaves home Monday, is out in the truck all week until Friday night/Saturday and bangs in over 60hrs and often 70hrs a week.
As for the cost of getting a container delivered going up, that’s down to hauliers having increased waiting times collecting containers and dropping them off and that time costs them money for which they need to charge for so for an individual container the cost of delivery increases because of the waiting time. That doesn’t get passed down to the driver because you’ll either be doing the same hours or maybe less but instead of doing say 2hrs waiting getting the box on and off, 6hrs driving and 4-5hr sat delivery and collection points as they empty and refill the container you’ll be doing 6hrs waiting, 3-4hrs driving, 1-2hrs unloading the box. The difference for the driver is due to spending hours sitting waiting to get a box on and off you’ll do fewer loads in a week because you’ll run out of duty time every day.
The only good money in transport goes in the bosses pocket and always has done .
We do specialised work. Oversize cabins into London. Its not for the fainthearted but it is paid very well with good T&C’s.
A few years ago we had a fella get the sack as he was a pain the arse quoting this rule and that rule (we all know the type). This fella after getting the sack got a job on general haulage and was boasting he was getting roughly the same pay as what he was getting at his old job. Untill he let slip he was working 60 plus a week and running out Sunday afternoon! Muppet.
rigsby:
The only good money in transport goes in the bosses pocket and always has done .
Road fuel tax and VED before the guvnor makes a pound from the job.I’d guess that those exceed the wage bill.
There are Certain touches like someone posted using a Moffat or hiab possibly chaining loads , unloading other trailers , to much sitting about on Container work what About walking floor work or possibly Even Low loader not the extreme end , so it seems general haulage isn’t paying as Good a Money after All .
Stacks74:
I keep hearing of big money out there £1000 a week , I’m aware of big money in heavy haulage and oversized , but what about general haulage I was listening to a bloke on 5 live saying the cost to get a container delivered
To his business has doubled since last year partly down to brexit and driver shortage , but has this rise in prices been passed onto the driver any container lads want to chime in also bulk haulage with night out money and tax paid what can you bring in on a good week £££
Tesco , I get £13 ph x 70 hrs , 4 nights = £1,000 , I could if I wanted do a extra shift & make it 1,250 but 5 days is more than enough
Now I know there struggling badly for drivers as loads have left for more money , so £1,000 pw is nothing special these days ( we had a thread on here years ago where’s at the time only me & a few others it seemed weren’t on 1,000 pw ,£15 ph , 90% seemed we’re
Stacks74:
I keep hearing of big money out there £1000 a week , I’m aware of big money in heavy haulage and oversized , but what about general haulage I was listening to a bloke on 5 live saying the cost to get a container delivered
To his business has doubled since last year partly down to brexit and driver shortage , but has this rise in prices been passed onto the driver any container lads want to chime in also bulk haulage with night out money and tax paid what can you bring in on a good week £££
We should ALL be on ‘big’ money especially when you look at the toilet roll panic of last year’s lockdown, but sadly we’re not. Everyone talks about ‘essential workers’, but it’s literally happy clappy bulls**t. Your doctors, nurses, truck drivers, bin men, grave diggers etc are staggeringly underpaid for what we do. Personally I’d pull the plug on society and hold a national essential workers strike until they see life with overflowing bins, empty shelves, untended sick, unburied bodies like Britain in the mid-70s!!!
Imported labour has not helped rates either and firms have been ■■■■■■■ wages too. Not too long ago a firm I worked for binned wage rises three years on the trot because the DC across the road , which they also ran, paid drivers a lower rate and they wanted to equalise us. So rather than increase them, they held us back.
The reality is you will earn 35-40k a year for a 48hr 5 day week with fairly basic benefits, taking home around 5-600 per week. So, not a poverty wage by any means, but nice car, pay your bills, have a holiday, feed and clothe your kids and that’s it!!
If drivers played fair wages would increase unfortunately some drivers are masters at making an 8 hour job into a 12 job
and would continue to do so if they were on £50 per hour
£1000 Big money is in the “gaffers” pocket and it usually stays there.
£400 could be big money to some especially when you have been out of work or sick for along time on basic “hand out money” and then £400 top line looks big.
All money is good no matter how much it is especially if its in your pocket or bank.
Stacks74:
I keep hearing of big money out there £1000 a week , I’m aware of big money in heavy haulage and oversized , but what about general haulage I was listening to a bloke on 5 live saying the cost to get a container delivered
To his business has doubled since last year partly down to brexit and driver shortage , but has this rise in prices been passed onto the driver any container lads want to chime in also bulk haulage with night out money and tax paid what can you bring in on a good week £££
Not sure it is relevant to quote container shipment charges at the moment, as some shipping lines have put a premium on shipping rates to actually dampen the market until things settle, and there is a realistic amount of empty containers and shipping in the correct place to service the market.
Also, as a driver you are a link in a long chain. I recently delivered a container to a house about 2 mile from the local dock. F/forwarder charged the guy £270 for this. I got half. Muggins here has to go online, sort out VBS, get up at the crack of dawn, join the wacky races into the dock, drive a 44t truck into a residential cul-de-sac with the trees battering the roof of the cab, then give the guy a hand to get his stuff off, then restitute empty on the other side of town, whilst forwarder guy just logs details and makes a phone call. Making money in general haulage is all about getting your head down and working them stupid hours…best done when you are younger.
8 wheeler grab working on utils. Gas water electric.
£170 a day and tine half saturday double bubble sunday.
If you opt in for emergency callout its £100 quid for on call and hours paid when out.
Regards.
lolipop:
£1000 Big money is in the “gaffers” pocket and it usually stays there.
£400 could be big money to some especially when you have been out of work or sick for along time on basic “hand out money” and then £400 top line looks big.
All money is good no matter how much it is especially if its in your pocket or bank.
I guess it depends where in the country you are also. I work in an office at the moment and take home around £400 a week. That is considered a decent enough wage here in South Wales!
Not sure how it compares to driver wages in this area…?
If you want to have a small fortune in the haulage industry, then I suggest you start with a Large fortune. 
SWEDISH BLUE:
If you want to have a small fortune in the haulage industry, then I suggest you start with a Large fortune.
Like the famous Richard Branson quote
" How did I become millionaire.? I started out as a billionaire then started an airline company"
There is no big money in transport anymore the the less professional company’s have screwed the rates down
to the point where most are just making enough to get by week on week
and if there’s a slight hiccup the gates are shut
cgscott:
8 wheeler grab working on utils. Gas water electric.£170 a day and tine half saturday double bubble sunday.
If you opt in for emergency callout its £100 quid for on call and hours paid when out.
Regards.
I’m on the Same money as you fella but on
A tipper motorway work 12
Hours a day including traveling from and back to the house Saturday shift nothing extra unfortunately but I do FA
Driving could spend 3 hours a day on break so a lot of sitting about for me ,
His Tonyness filled the country with potential labour thats what brought the rates down, or stopped them from going up. My first gigs were paid at £7.50 25 years ago.