good god I agree with conor whats going on.
but seeing as you asked I doubt A, you will get onto euro work for the reasons others have stated. and B, due to the amount incoming from the Eu would expect the wages to be decreasing over what they once were.
speak to whitewhitewhite see if he has anything to offer as he runs over the water.
Conor:
alder:
Still don’t know if this thread is just a big windup, I suspect it is but I will play your game. You will definitely not get good money. In fact you will get the worse of the jobs.Depends where you are. I know a lad who passed his test and for his first ever Class 1 job got a full time night trunking job with an agency at a company on the TPN pallet network, was and still is grossing £650 a week with 20hrs a week spent with his head in his pillow.
Frankeh, £2000 a month take home is not unrealistic, many of us are, but expect to do a 60hr week for it. Supermarket work is easy to get into on agencies and it pays a premium, especially coming up to Xmas, because not many people want to do it because for haulage its a bit of hard work. You will go to a supermarket and typically have up to 80 wheeled cages to unload and then an equivalent amount of empties to put on. You’re not rushed and it’ll keep you fit. A lot of truck drivers don’t do it because they just want to drive to places, open up the doors/curtains and have someone else do the work which is why so many are fat.
In regards to ADR, its no longer worth it. It pays maybe 50p to £1/hr more for a lot of risk. Petrol tankers are the only ADR worth doing and that is all but a closed shop. As for continental work it no longer pays above UK work like it did. You can get better paid work here so the only reason for doing continental is because of the lifestyle it offers. I would not do continental if you’ve a family or wife or a girlfriend you want to keep as you can be away for weeks at a time. It also has its own issues - apart from a few exceptions lorries cannot move in France on a weekend so if you’re not at Calais or Dunkirk by the stroke of midnight on Friday you’re not going home til Monday.
Tramping is crap in my opinion wholly due to the lack of truckstops and parking. You end up parking a lot in laybys and on industrial estates with nowhere to get a hot meal unless you have cooking gear in your cab, nowhere to get a wash or even take a crap. You do however end up getting to see more of the country. I for example rarely get to go down to the south west past Bristol, down to the south coast or north of Lockerbie because its further than I can do in a day from my base.
Trunking is easy work and easy money but it is menial and soul destroying to anyone with even the remotest amount of intelligence. I’m lucky in that we’ve got 10 different places we trunk to on a night but most of the jobs available involve going to one or two places at the most. How long do you think you can drive the same 300 miles a night, 5 nights a week?
Don’t listen to the whiners on here, they keep on bleating on about imaginary good old days and fantasy wages. They’re right, its not the job it used to be and for the majority of the job that is no bad thing. A lot of the camaraderie has gone though and that is pretty much the biggest thing that’s got worse but for much of the rest of it its a vast improvement. I was driving in those “golden years” and they were far from good and the only way you’d earn the money mentioned is by having no life, leaving home on Monday morning, not returning til Saturday afternoon, being out all week in the lorry doing max hours and usually involving a bit of running bent. The job I’m doing now which is exactly the same company and the same as it was when I did it in 1994 pays almost 3 times what it did 20 years ago so I doubt many of those claims. But the fact is you’re coming into the job now so have no experience of what it was like and therefore have no rose tinted glasses to look through and will base it on what you think of it now compared to what you’ve done before. If you start today you have no idea whether its good or bad compared to what it was like 30 years ago because you weren’t doing it back then.
Thanks Conor,
I am well used to Internet forums in other parts of my life for other interests so fully get the old skool crowd and the doom mongering from them 
So do you have any names of agencies or info on the TPN pallet network ( I have no idea what that is ) so I can start having a look. I live in bucks so I am not to far from London but would prefer a job slightly closer to home for start and finishes.
Ta mate
Frankeh:
I am looking to take home between £400/500 a week after taxes to get close to my old job. That was salaried though and I have no idea what hourly rate I need to be looking at.
You will find jobs like that as a newbie, but unless you happen to be in the right place at the right time you will probably end up working what in any other line of work would be considered almost enough hours for two people, never mind one, to earn that.
If you are not yet in the industry I cannot stress enough that in many cases, long hours will often be expected, and by long I mean 12 or more per day. Of course, builders merchants and the like don’t expect that but you won’t be taking home £500pw either.
There are jobs out there which pay £500pw in the bank for a normal week’s work (i.e. 40-45 hours) but you will be very lucky to get a sniff of them, both through lack of experience and because those who are in them already seldom leave.
most of what Coner put is correct but it’s how will a new driver get in at a place like where he works to earn good money
OK frankeh fair enough, well I hope you are getting what you are looking for. 
alder:
OK frankeh fair enough, well I hope you are getting what you are looking for.
Cheers.
The job is ■■■■. Don’t go anywhere near it
There is no more money running abroad .prob the the reverse. And why do you think driving abroad attracts more money it’s the same job just on the other side of the road
chester1:
There is no more money running abroad .prob the the reverse. And why do you think driving abroad attracts more money it’s the same job just on the other side of the road
He probably got told a tale by an old driver as it did used to be good. The wages and expenses were about what they are now but in the 1980’s. There was also another reason, we used to smuggle tobacco and spirits (duty free) back. On the coaches I made more on San Miguel than my wages! However this has all changed drastically as now you just smuggle immigrants back and get fined for it 
topmixer11:
SUPERMARKET work inner and outer london short hours good rates easy work bit boring but so are motorways after a while
Hi is that for class 2 mate
Frankeh:
So do you have any names of agencies or info on the TPN pallet network ( I have no idea what that is ) so I can start having a look. I live in bucks so I am not to far from London but would prefer a job slightly closer to home for start and finishes.Ta mate
Sorry mate I’m 250 miles away from you so no help.
This should find the haulage companies near you who do it.
thepalletnetworkltd.co.uk/find-a-member/
Its boring but easy work for a newbie. 16ft high double deck trailers so they can be a bit daunting at first but they have a very low centre of gravity and are only 1.5-2ft higher than your average single deck - we run 14ft 3in single deckers.
As I said to a chap the other day …
Open google
Go to maps
Zoom in on a close radius to you
in the search box type haulage or logistics or both
All the companies will come up and be highlighted
You can then call them up and ask if they wnt a driver
bradsharp:
topmixer11:
SUPERMARKET work inner and outer london short hours good rates easy work bit boring but so are motorways after a whileHi is that for class 2 mate
no mate 1
Frankeh:
I live in bucks
i had a call from an agency the other day wanting to send me to Bidvest in Bicester, 3 months temp to perm then 35K salary which would clear your 2k a month take home target. I reckon they would definately take new passes there, plus maybe not too far for you?
vikingpete:
The job is [zb]. Don’t go anywhere near it
welcome to our cosy little forum, pete. Looking forward to more of your upbeat and informative input. well done.
I haven’t read the last half of the thread up until this post of mine, so perhaps what I’m about to say has already been said.
But a few years ago (about 6 years) I went along for a chat at a local company about European work and they told me they’d set on a lad who’d had his class 1 licence just 6 months. It was Mon am start, south of Italy, tip, reload either Italy or Germany and back by Fri night Sat morning. Also, the company I work at now pay £30k gross for class 1 night drivers (£450 take home p/w) and that’s for 39.5 hours average with 3.5 days off per week average. If they do 50 hours (5 shifts, then 3 off) it’s £38k gross (£570 take home p/w) and I know a couple of the drivers have had their class 1 licence for less than 1 year. The company I worked at until last year paid £29k(ish) gross (£415 take home p/w) for anything between 40 and 60 hours (typically 50) and would take on new drivers, and was all trunking work with 1 or 2 drops per night (from 15 depots), which would likely suit you for a year or 2 of experience.
I’ve always lived by the principle that where there’s a will, there is most definitely a way. Ignore the doom mongers. There are some really well paid jobs out there, although for you petrol tankers will not be one of them, not a chance right now. You just have to search a lot for the better paid jobs, be slightly lucky, and show flexibility, but they’re there. Attitude also goes a long way.
human cannonball:
Frankeh:
I live in bucksi had a call from an agency the other day wanting to send me to Bidvest in Bicester, 3 months temp to perm then 35K salary which would clear your 2k a month take home target. I reckon they would definately take new passes there, plus maybe not too far for you?
Thanks, can’t remember the name of the agency can you ?
ezydriver:
I haven’t read the last half of the thread up until this post of mine, so perhaps what I’m about to say has already been said.But a few years ago (about 6 years) I went along for a chat at a local company about European work and they told me they’d set on a lad who’d had his class 1 licence just 6 months. It was Mon am start, south of Italy, tip, reload either Italy or Germany and back by Fri night Sat morning. Also, the company I work at now pay £30k gross for class 1 night drivers (£450 take home p/w) and that’s for 39.5 hours average with 3.5 days off per week average. If they do 50 hours (5 shifts, then 3 off) it’s £38k gross (£570 take home p/w) and I know a couple of the drivers have had their class 1 licence for less than 1 year. The company I worked at until last year paid £29k(ish) gross (£415 take home p/w) for anything between 40 and 60 hours (typically 50) and would take on new drivers, and was all trunking work with 1 or 2 drops per night (from 15 depots), which would likely suit you for a year or 2 of experience.
I’ve always lived by the principle that where there’s a will, there is most definitely a way. Ignore the doom mongers. There are some really well paid jobs out there, although for you petrol tankers will not be one of them, not a chance right now. You just have to search a lot for the better paid jobs, be slightly lucky, and show flexibility, but they’re there. Attitude also goes a long way.
Thanks
Where is the money at? In simplistic terms it comes from working longer hours than the average joe in non driving jobs. To earn more money you work longer hours.
Your biggest problem will be finding a company that will take a newly passed driver on, so you not going to have the same opportunities as an experienced driver. Only advice is avoid the clowns that want to pay you a fixed wage for unknown hours, as you’ll generally get shafted. Go for hourly paid every time.
topmixer11:
mike68:
First of all you need to get a few years under you’re belt to see what suits you and you’re lifestyle.You will inevitably pick up the crap that people like me wouldn’t touch, and this will probably mean agencies, my own personal viewpoint is that for profit transport is to be avoided like the Black Death (shiny lorry many lights crap pay worked to death retire into poverty if you live to see it), unionised own account work such as supermarkets is the way forward, proper pay, with all the benefits sick pay, free shares ,staf discount and so on.
AGREED staff card life insurance if death in service 2x salary cheerfull NOT but handy