Career in HGV driving

[andyp]

In our organisation over the last 18 months or so we've acquired a heck of a lot of HGV'ers who've jacked in the trucks and come driving buses - simply for the fact there's more money in it.

 

[squerble]

Home delivery drivers for (Supermarkets) don't do nearly as many drops as a courier. At my place we do between 16 and 24 drops a day (9-5), or if you do a 13 hour shift (morning, afternoon and evening run) that'd probably be around 36 drops.

Tesco offer a higher rate of pay at about £7.49/hour, but Asda offer you a pittance of £6.12/hour (flat rate colleague pay, which is a shame, because you do an infinite amount of work more than the checkout girls yet still get paid that same...that's life I guess).

 

[mame]

I worked in a job for 5 years where I booked HGVs (and their drivers) into a depot and signed for goods etc. A place that takes in around 2500 pallets a day. I would say most of the drivers don't like what they do but don't really know anything else (which could be said about many jobs really) Some of them are happy-go-lucky, don't care how long they have to wait or how far they have to drive for their next drop etc. That's the attitude you need. If you are going to stress about what time you finish or promise yourself that you will be home in x hours, then you will soon start to hate the job.

There was a small number of drivers who worked a fairly normal day. Start at 8, finish at 6ish but they don't earn much money. probably a small step up from working in a warehouse. Maybe because there would be plenty of drivers who would want such a job. The shunters that work there (drivers who move trailers around a yard, on and off of loading bays) are all ex-drivers who have had enough of the unpredictable hours and now favour a very boring and unrewarding job so that they can have a regular start time and finish time.

 

[Zip]

IMO HGV driving isnt a Career, Its a job.

Its pretty hard to actually get Pay risers and better positionbs in the world of truck driving.

Want to make real money with HGVs, Start you're own trucking company

 

[I get around]

A certain supermarket with home delivery pays the van drivers £7.49 which is the basic staff pay plus £1. Requires 4 years driving experience.

Tescos pay £7.10 odd to the delivery drivers and you need to be over 18, 1 year experience with 3 points tops.
I've been thinking of applying when i get the year experience, should be a laugh ragging a tescos van about town wasting their petrol.

 

[Scania]

should be a laugh ragging a tescos van about town wasting their petrol.

Hilarious. Dropping off boxes of shopping to people who can't be arsed to goto the shop? no thanks.

They use diesel btw.

 

[I get around]

I'm a student, in all fairness, i'd prefer to be out driving a van than scanning shopping through on a checkout for rude customers who think they're god.

 

[Rilenz]

Now there is nothing i hate worse than selfish drivers, and whilst the cars have very limited visibility, us in trucks can generally see the road ahead more easily and our lights are higher up and tend to go further so instead of undertaking and overtaking the slow cars like the other trucks i seen a poor guy struggling at 40mph in lane two. I got up close to his rear bumper and put my full beam on, this has the effect of enabeling him to see more of the road ahead and we managed to get his top speed upto 50mph. He was very grateful, he was waving out of his window to me with his arm, and his wife in the passenger seat kept looking back at me for reassurance tha i was still there. Once we dropped down the hills and the mist cleared he give me another wave and a toot and he scooted off, now why we all can't help each other more like that i don't know.

HAHA brilliant, was having a serious moment reading up on folks experience's then when I read this could'nt stop chuckling thanks dude made my morning that did lol

 

[Deleted User 234324]

I work for a certain 4 green letter company as a delivery driver, while I enjoy the job, being out and about and driving. Management and company procedure are a total joke. Health and safety at work is none existent, on the few occasions you may leave the depot on time or early, you can almost guarantee that the route planning has been abysmal and you will lose time in traffic, resulting in late deliveries.

It has actually got so bad the past couple years, that driver's have resulted to returning to the depot with undelivered goods because they "run out of time". We are all contracted specific hours and no one goes over those times anymore. We are also the lowest paid of all the home shopping delivery drivers so you can imagine morale isn't exactly high.

But I like my job, if I could do this for someone else on a higher pay with better support from the company and management, I would in a heart beat. The only saving grace is every month I get a nice little thank you email with a monetary bonus for ranking in the top 5% percentile of drivers within the company.

I would love to progress onto getting my HGV license, but the cost of getting those is too much for me.

 

[Josh]

Epic thread revival for a second post!

 

[valkynaz]

Have you considered a job in one of the supermarket depots (picking etc.)? I know Asda have a scheme ("driving ambition") to get people from the depot into driving jobs and you could be earning a reasonable wage while you're there.

Tell that to most Transport managers, depot managers and haulage company directors , you'll find the vast majority of them will be ex drivers.

And then theres owner drivers, being your own boss is the top of the ladder for a lot of people.

I believe I can offer some insight into order picking.

I started out as a order picker in a distribution centre for a discount supermarket in Nov 2013 on agency at £6.50/hr. I got taken on full time 4 months later in March 2014 and progressed up to £7.20/hr. Last month there were some interviews for transport chargehands/trainee supervisors and I got one of the jobs. So in less than a year of employment with the company, I have progressed on to a £22k job (works out to be £10.57/hr) with a lot of future prospects. My progression from this point would be to a transport supervisor and then transport manager.

I'm not saying that this will be the story for everyone, but there opportunities out there if you work hard.

 

[do_ron_ron]

Hi,

Firstly I thought id post this in GD as I feel its a more apropriate place to talk about a career than motors...

Im looking for advice on this career choice really, and any in-house HGV driver opinions, do you enjoy your job? whats the perks? downsides etc?

Anyway, so Im 21 and stuck in a job I dont enjoy. Ive been thinking for a while that Id like a career in HGV driving.

Ive looked up the training courses and it seems its going to cost a couple of thousand pounds to get my cat C+E (class 1). I understand that before i can get this I need to get my cat c (rigid class 2).


Now, all of these training companys claim that theres always thousands of HGV jobs out there, and there always will be, even in times like these...

But Im not sure how true this is... as I hear of drivers being made redundant etc...

Is there still a big demand for drivers?

any help would be great thanks!

One brother got an HGV2 and after a while got a steady job. Cost £2000-3000
Another got an HGV1, about £9000 and is unemployed. Need HGV2 first.
If you can get it in_house go for it then at least you have an alternative road to choose(no pun intended)
Lots of unsocial hours and week-end work. It also can be a physically demanding job - depends on type of load on/off.
Unless you love driving. apparently it gets boring after a while. My brother is a petrol head so he loves it. He also told me there is a lot of East European truck drivers so that may have to be taken into consideration.

 

[Lopéz]

I appreciate this is an old thread, but the driver situation is no better now than it was then. There is a genuine driver crisis at the moment that is affecting the whole industry.

 

[B&W]

Get your adr and drive a fuel tanker. Better pay with slight more risk.

Tankers can be very slow but the main problem is other motorists who can't understand your carrying 20 plus tonnes. And cyclists...

 

[pumaz]

I work for a certain 4 green letter company as a delivery driver, while I enjoy the job, being out and about and driving. Management and company procedure are a total joke. Health and safety at work is none existent, on the few occasions you may leave the depot on time or early, you can almost guarantee that the route planning has been abysmal and you will lose time in traffic, resulting in late deliveries.

It has actually got so bad the past couple years, that driver's have resulted to returning to the depot with undelivered goods because they "run out of time". We are all contracted specific hours and no one goes over those times anymore. We are also the lowest paid of all the home shopping delivery drivers so you can imagine morale isn't exactly high.

But I like my job, if I could do this for someone else on a higher pay with better support from the company and management, I would in a heart beat. The only saving grace is every month I get a nice little thank you email with a monetary bonus for ranking in the top 5% percentile of drivers within the company.

I would love to progress onto getting my HGV license, but the cost of getting those is too much for me.

They seem hell bent on getting 22 drops on a van no matter how long your shift is, our travel and doorstep time is constantly being cut, can't remember the last time I had a break or finished at my contracted time

At my 4 letter place we have a constant stream of new drivers replacing broken ones! It really is proper exhausting thankless work and no matter how desperate you are to get back in to work I'd avoid a driving job here

22 drops doesn't sound allot compared to a couriers 60/70 but this is peoples weekly shopping and you could be delivering 8 totes or more shopping to a top floor flat that you can't park anywhere near and may even have to unpack it as well. Most totes I've delivered to a single address is 41 and half of it was water (very heavy). Couriers mostly deliver single packets or parcels as far as I'm aware but still hard work, just not Home Shopping hard!

 

[Mr Joshua]

Get your adr and drive a fuel tanker. Better pay with slight more risk.

Tankers can be very slow but the main problem is other motorists who can't understand your carrying 20 plus tonnes. And cyclists...

I can't speak from personal experience but from the general haulage drivers I spoke to getting onto tankers or car transporters can be tricky, many said you almost have to be born into it.

 

[remy87]

They seem hell bent on getting 22 drops on a van no matter how long your shift is, our travel and doorstep time is constantly being cut, can't remember the last time I had a break or finished at my contracted time

At my 4 letter place we have a constant stream of new drivers replacing broken ones! It really is proper exhausting thankless work and no matter how desperate you are to get back in to work I'd avoid a driving job here

22 drops doesn't sound allot compared to a couriers 60/70 but this is peoples weekly shopping and you could be delivering 8 totes or more shopping to a top floor flat that you can't park anywhere near and may even have to unpack it as well. Most totes I've delivered to a single address is 41 and half of it was water (very heavy). Couriers mostly deliver single packets or parcels as far as I'm aware but still hard work, just not Home Shopping hard!

wow is that 22 drops for a 4-5h shift or is it split between 2 shift ? 10h in total?

 

[Mr Joshua]

wow is that 22 drops for a 4-5h shift or is it split between 2 shift ? 10h in total?

In the past I've seen 29 in a 7 hour shift, two full van loads.

What a couple other posters have said really hit the nail on the head. At one employer conditions seem to be deteriorating rapidly with drivers not getting holidays, vans not having the correct equipment available (fuel cards, mobile phones and sat navs), vans not being roadworthy which lead to some being removed from the road by the fleet inspector on a surprise visit.

They can't get people to cover shifts, every day off results in phone calls to do a shift.

Lopez - do you mean the HGV industry is short of drivers at the moment?

 

[Deleted User 234324]

They seem hell bent on getting 22 drops on a van no matter how long your shift is, our travel and doorstep time is constantly being cut, can't remember the last time I had a break or finished at my contracted time

At my 4 letter place we have a constant stream of new drivers replacing broken ones! It really is proper exhausting thankless work and no matter how desperate you are to get back in to work I'd avoid a driving job here

22 drops doesn't sound allot compared to a couriers 60/70 but this is peoples weekly shopping and you could be delivering 8 totes or more shopping to a top floor flat that you can't park anywhere near and may even have to unpack it as well. Most totes I've delivered to a single address is 41 and half of it was water (very heavy). Couriers mostly deliver single packets or parcels as far as I'm aware but still hard work, just not Home Shopping hard!

22!? That's a quiet day for us, average is 25-27 with our highest so far this year being a split run with 31 total drops.

We get a lot of businesses uses us around here as well, often with huge loads 20-45 totes, we also cover a huge university complex and dozens of residential flats which as you say is more often than not some fat lazy **** on the 3rd floor (the highest we go unless there is a lift) with 8 totes of bottled water!

Management have no idea just how "hard" the job actually is, if they did I'm sure things would be very different.

 

[Deleted User 234324]

In the past I've seen 29 in a 7 hour shift, two full van loads.

What a couple other posters have said really hit the nail on the head. At one employer conditions seem to be deteriorating rapidly with drivers not getting holidays, vans not having the correct equipment available (fuel cards, mobile phones and sat navs), vans not being roadworthy which lead to some being removed from the road by the fleet inspector on a surprise visit.

They can't get people to cover shifts, every day off results in phone calls to do a shift.

Lopez - do you mean the HGV industry is short of drivers at the moment?

Sounds exactly like the place I work, vans missing fuel cards, sack barrows and other essential equipment, poor maintenance. I actually had my van brake down yesterday due to worn brake pads. That should NEVER happen on a well maintained fleet.

I've had at most half a dozen breaks in the 3 years I have worked them. I never do them favours any more and ALWAYS finish at my contracted time no matter what. We have never had a drivers "huddle" so as an employee myself and all the other veteran drivers feel we have no voice at all.