Can you work HGVs and still have a family life...
Discussion
To start with you'll have to take what's offered to gain experience . Unless you strike it lucky you'll be hard pressed to find a day job that pays top dollar , supermarkets are probably your best bet , start with one on agency then get on full time . Plenty of companies offering 4 on 4 off also , which imho is a great work/life balance .
As above really, Iv done 4 on 4 off before and I really liked it the working week goes quick as it’s one day less and a nice 4 off means get to go away for a couple days without using holidays etc. Iv done day work and tramping most companies will do day work but it depends how much money you want to earn. Iv done mon-fri days home every night and did heavy haulage away from home for 4 weeks or more at a time and pay has been from £400 to £1400 a week.
I now work for Waitrose and it’s in the middle really, 5 days out of 7 including weekends but a fixed rota so always know when you’ll be off and what shift you'll be doing etc but it’s still a 50 hour week so more than a 9-5 office job. If they did 4 on 4 off here I’d certainly be taking that again.
I now work for Waitrose and it’s in the middle really, 5 days out of 7 including weekends but a fixed rota so always know when you’ll be off and what shift you'll be doing etc but it’s still a 50 hour week so more than a 9-5 office job. If they did 4 on 4 off here I’d certainly be taking that again.
You can very easily spend over 12hrs a day in an HGV, for a fixed rate, which can be poor, even for skilled work (ie £420 per week take home). It seems to be a race to the bottom and people earned far more (relatively and literally) ten or twenty years ago.
It can be great: it frequently isnt.
It can be great: it frequently isnt.
If you want family time, dont bother. I've had my class 1 for 3 years and have grown to hate it. It's such a poor industry, you have to take a lot of s
t.
Depending where you work, hours average between 12 to 16 hours in my experience. Most firms like to max your hours, but I wont go further with that as I've had to do drastic things to stay legal.
When I first passed I worked for an agency and found the best places are DHL, DPD, Royal Mail, etc, but you have to go through st jobs to get friendly with the agency. If you want money you either have to put the hours in or get an ADR sorted.
I'm always handing my CV out to work else where - a recent call back offered me minimum wage.
t. Depending where you work, hours average between 12 to 16 hours in my experience. Most firms like to max your hours, but I wont go further with that as I've had to do drastic things to stay legal.
When I first passed I worked for an agency and found the best places are DHL, DPD, Royal Mail, etc, but you have to go through s
t jobs to get friendly with the agency. If you want money you either have to put the hours in or get an ADR sorted. I'm always handing my CV out to work else where - a recent call back offered me minimum wage.
Chedders said:
If you want family time, dont bother. I've had my class 1 for 3 years and have grown to hate it. It's such a poor industry, you have to take a lot of st.
Depending where you work, hours average between 12 to 16 hours in my experience. Most firms like to max your hours, but I wont go further with that as I've had to do drastic things to stay legal.
When I first passed I worked for an agency and found the best places are DHL, DPD, Royal Mail, etc, but you have to go through st jobs to get friendly with the agency. If you want money you either have to put the hours in or get an ADR sorted.
I'm always handing my CV out to work else where - a recent call back offered me minimum wage.
12 hours?t. Depending where you work, hours average between 12 to 16 hours in my experience. Most firms like to max your hours, but I wont go further with that as I've had to do drastic things to stay legal.
When I first passed I worked for an agency and found the best places are DHL, DPD, Royal Mail, etc, but you have to go through s
t jobs to get friendly with the agency. If you want money you either have to put the hours in or get an ADR sorted. I'm always handing my CV out to work else where - a recent call back offered me minimum wage.
Not a chance here.
Shows it depends on the job you find.
And 16 hours is illegal for a start. I don’t know what area you are from but there’s plenty of firms around here that are nothing like what you’ve described. I do 50 hours max (unless I choose overtime) a week, my shift yesterday was 6 hours long and I have a 3 day weekend this week, you just have to stick it out and find a decent place. And no is going to knock on your door and offer it you when I started I offered to work for free for a couple days to prove my self to get in at a decent place.
Its Just Adz said:
12 hours?
Not a chance here.
Shows it depends on the job you find.
It does depend entirely on the company.Not a chance here.
Shows it depends on the job you find.
I've done both ends of the spectrum.
I did a couple of months at a pallet network which was 9am starts and a very relaxed company and work load. 10/12 drops around local industrial estates and sometimes houses, done by 1/2pm, a couple of collections and then back to the yard at 4.30/5. I didn't appreciate how good it was there. If you can get something like this then it can fit very well with family.
Yet I also worked somewhere else that was 5am starts, driving 300 miles and 7 drops mostly handballing the product off. After a 13 hour then a 14.5 hour day I almost told them to stuff it I won't be back tomorrow but ploughed on and finished the week, won't be going back there.... There was no support there either, if I hit my 15 hours there would've been no-one to rescue me and would've meant a night out as a day driver.
Even at 12hrs you're way over the legal maximum permissible working time and if it is kept up then your reference period average will be right up on the single week limit too.
At this point they're expecting you to use 'other work' to lower your working time: I will do that to suit my own ends, but I would never do it to enable a poor operator to wring the last drip of blood out of everything, including me.
At this point they're expecting you to use 'other work' to lower your working time: I will do that to suit my own ends, but I would never do it to enable a poor operator to wring the last drip of blood out of everything, including me.
I think a lot of it depends on where you live, there's so much work around here that we are all treated fairly well as we could just walk straight into a new job. If you lived in the arse end of nowhere and they knew you have to travel an hour to find anything better then they can treat you however they like.
I've been looking in to this a lot as I need to change career. An acquaintance of mine has recently passed class 2 and has been working solidly for 6 months since passing with agency, and now secured a perm job with a builders merchants offering HIAB, forklift and class 1 training, 27k salary and working 7. 30 till 4.30. IMO that's not bad considering he's only been at it 6 months.
Where I live in Northamptonshire there is an abundance of work though, and plenty of opportunities if you like the hours and the money or if you'd rather just do steady days and have a life (and more modest income).
I've weighed it up and it seems very much like my current trade where you can earn great money if you like being at work a lot or you can find a place where they do a flat bog standard working week and have a life if you live within your means. I've just ordered the forms for the provisional.
Where I live in Northamptonshire there is an abundance of work though, and plenty of opportunities if you like the hours and the money or if you'd rather just do steady days and have a life (and more modest income).
I've weighed it up and it seems very much like my current trade where you can earn great money if you like being at work a lot or you can find a place where they do a flat bog standard working week and have a life if you live within your means. I've just ordered the forms for the provisional.
Hi guys newbie here i passed my c+e almost five years ago went straight into supermarket work still with same company now i found it a great way to pick up experience, lots of challenging loading bays and access roads, dont do store deliveries often nowadays mostly evening trucking runs to satelite depots. I work 4 on 3 off, 45 hour contract finnish your run early go home still get paid. However my kids are older 1 teen 2 adults so family life more flexible, if you have young kids the start/finnish times a lot of places offer could be hard on family life that said i would recommend the industry to anyone wanting a career change, plenty of work out there even for new passes.
Cpl Cartwright jones said:
Hi guys newbie here i passed my c+e almost five years ago went straight into supermarket work still with same company now i found it a great way to pick up experience, lots of challenging loading bays and access roads, dont do store deliveries often nowadays mostly evening trucking runs to satelite depots. I work 4 on 3 off, 45 hour contract finnish your run early go home still get paid. However my kids are older 1 teen 2 adults so family life more flexible, if you have young kids the start/finnish times a lot of places offer could be hard on family life that said i would recommend the industry to anyone wanting a career change, plenty of work out there even for new passes.
I take it jobs can be had that are days or early morning starts though?I was thinking of maybe starting on tippers and waiting for another job to come along whilst gaining experience...
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