Anyone an HGV driver or the partner of one?

[InsolentAnnie]

DH is thinking of retraining (currently a teacher and mightily sick of the whole thing). I have zero idea about this as a career option! How does it fit in with family life? (We have two kids aged 2 and 8, I work 3-4 days pw) Is it possible to do it without doing night shifts? Do you / they enjoy your / their job? Are the salaries decent, and is there plentiful work? (Given the news headlines I’m assuming there is, but I never fully trust the media!)

Any advice / info would be really helpful. I’m keen to find out how it might work with a young family or if he should look at something else.

It's long hours! A lorry driver can work up to 15 hrs a day! It's not a 9-5 job. My ex husband is a lorry driver when he was days/ nights it was 9-12 hours a shift on days as a tramper (sleep out overnight in truck) it's 12-15 hours a day. Wages aren't fantastic but getting better. Being a tramper is where the money is due to night out money/meal allowances/longer hours.

Also shifts can start at anytime, days can be anytime from midnight start!

Dh is a coach driver, so not hgv, better working hours though and there’s a huge lack of drivers in the industry.

My partner is a hgv driver. He's away Monday to Friday (sometimes Sunday to Friday) he loves his job. Wages are good normally £800 a week. I sort the children 6 and 4 all week and work. It is tiring but I find it rewarding at the same time.

OH is a HGV driver and qualified about 10 years ago.

He had to work agency for a while, as most companies wanted experience, but I suspect that companies will be less fussy due to the shortage of drivers. Even working agency, my OH has never been short of work and is constantly being offered permanent jobs.

Like you, we have a young family and OH has never had to work evenings or nights (unless he has wanted to). The type of jobs he has done, include home and office removals, the bins, food delivery, white goods delivery, scaffolding. All of these jobs have been done during the day. Drivers tend to start earlier, so 7am for example, to beat the rush hour, so I've done school drop off and OH has done the pick up.

The downsides - OH has to load and unload his truck, so physical strength is needed even with a pump truck.

The other downside is that he often gets sent down tight, narrow roads in unsuitable vehicles, so your DH will need to be confident in manoeuvring large vehicles. OH says sometimes, he has to reverse his truck back down those tight narrow roads because there isn't enough room to turn.

OH will say the biggest issue is traffic and he spends most of his time in traffic.

My OH is a natural driver (did about 5 lessons and passed his driving test first time). He has really good spacial awareness and can get himself out of the tightest of spaces. I, on the other hand constantly pranged my car when I got a bigger car because it took me ages to get used to a bigger size. I'd be a crap truck driver.

My dp is hgv driver working for a large transport company, he has been doing it for 20 plus years, his company pay really good money he works nights 4 on 4 off, plus plenty of overtime, this years approx salary 50k plus, i work part time as a health care assistant, working shifts and i have a teenage dd, and i look after the house, we get very little time together to socialise as a couple, i tend to be like a single mum, i go out with my friends more than going out with dp, so for me my thoughts are excellent money, long hours, no social time and can't really make plans unless we know he is off, he works weekends. And November and December he works 6 on 2 off as they are so busy, his company are now taking on people and putting them through their hgv licence and then they get a job at the end.
So to sum up he works for a good company, excellent money, we have a comfortable life but long hours and not much family time or couple time.

My Dh has been an HGV driver for 15 years (after 22 years as an RAF engineer)
Long hours.. some days he starts at 3am, others he doesn't get home til 8pm and some nights he's out all night in the lorry.
But he's with a good company and the pay is good..and while it took a while for him to get the hang of road life, using tachos etc, it's not anywhere near as stressful as teaching , and the pay is decent.

SO..long hours, reasonable pay, never be sure they are coming home!

He needs excellent spacial awareness as a previous poster said..I swear my dh can park ANYTHING with only an inch to spare, and he can navigate tiny roads, awkward bends in a 26 ton lorry without blinking.

We have a 1 year old and I'm not going to lie, his job is tough on family life. He is up at 2am most days, so needed by 6pm, before our baby's Bedtime. He enjoys his job though.

My main issue is that when he gets a day off, he's too tired to make the most of it. No point getting a babysitter so we can have a date night as he's falling asleep by 8pm.

He was a bus driver before this as and that job mentally broke him and sent him to a very dark place. He's much happier on the lorries, which is why I'm happy for him, despite missing him

Bedded by 6pm that should say.

There's some great replies on here because they are so honest

OP, your partner should look on Truck Net UK and the forums. There's one section for wannabe drivers and also one for time served drivers

Generally with a Class 2 licence the work will be more physical, more unloading yourself. Class 1 tends to be removed by a fork lift but not always

If somebody wants a Class 1 licence they need to get their Class 2 first

DH works for a major supermarket, starts between 8am and 9am, is contracted for 10 hours a day but can do up to 12/13 due to traffic (not often). Sometimes finishes by 5-6pm but has to make hours up.

He does 4/5 days in a row then 2/3 off. Around 2 weekends off a month(or at least a Sunday). Pay £45k (South East). He can work as many extra days as he wants as long as he gets his rest period. Gets paid for minimum of 12 hours on weekends even if he only works 9/10.

He does very little physical work as someone else loads and unloads at the stores.

The rotating days off were a pain when DC were younger as couldn’t plan anything regular but now they’re older it’s not so much of a problem and it’s handy sometimes that he’s home in the week.

He’s getting a £1.5k bonus for working in December this year and wages going going up soon.

His supermarket is trying to get non driving staff to
train as drivers, paying for it as well.

DH is Class 1, drives the big artics.

Mine is but goes out and comes home the same day.

The HGV trampers make the real money. That is a lifestyle not really compatible with seeing much of your family. You need to be a natural driver who loves being on the road, be able to handle constant stress, be confident, like your own company, think on your feet and be resourceful. I have worked with a lot of them and they are the most incredible breed of people. It's a way of life rather than a job. Very bad for you to sit most of the day - a lot of them eat crap because service stations are so expensive. Shower facilities horrible and expensive. So it can be rough.
Loads of great Youtube trampers to follow to see what the job is like and gave your husband lots of tips.

I know HGV drivers on less money than house cleaners or forklift drivers.
It's a big decision to take up this lifestyle.

My o/h is a specialist HGV driver for a fairly small company - I run the office side of things.

Wages and hours vary wildly between different companies. As a rule of thumb the massive companies (stobart etc) have poor working conditions and poor wages. Depending on what you do the hours also vary massively. Sometimes our boys leave at 6am and are home by midday, others they leave at 3am, have a night out (or more) and eventually get home at 4pm. The conditions can be interesting. If you have a modern sleeper cab then nights out are fine although finding a nice services is the key (keep in mind that not all companies will pay for the overnight parking at services which is circa £30).

Once you have your HGV and a bit of experience (class 1 pays more than 2) then there are other strings you can add to your bow, lorry mounted crane tickets etc. Generally speaking hiab drivers don't tramp although depending on what sector they're in sometimes nights out are required. ( I will stress though that to get in with the best companies, experience is key)

BIL has a licence not sure if Class 1 or 2 but he currently drives a bin lorry, which usually involves very early starts, between about 2 and 4 am I think, so he has to go to bed early and obviously cannot drink alcohol the afternoon/evening before.

Another relative works for a dairy and drives a milk tanker round the countryside within an hour or so or where he lives collecting mil
from farms, I think he does more or less daytime hours.

I also know someone who delivers petrol, which seems to be not long distance or overnight (but more like early morning to late evening but still a few hours travelling a day, he delivers to supermarket petrol stations across a large region of England) but has to have a special dangerous goods licence, but I expect that's another thing you only can do when you have mastered standard trucking first.

That's milk not mil, he's not in the business of picking up mother in laws.

My dad was a lorry driver, a tramper i’m guessing, would leave Sunday night/Monday morning and get home on Friday. He started that when I was about 11, having done more typical Monday-Friday before that.

He loved it, essentially was his own boss only speaking to the depot at the start of the week then heading around his route with pick ups & drop offs. He was robbed once, he went to sleep and forgot to lock his cab, woke up and his phone and wallet were gone. It’s not a healthy lifestyle, he had a camping stove but basically lived off service station fry ups and whatever he could get in the canteens where he was delivering. Despite passing his medical a few months previously he died of a massive heart attack in his early 40s in a depot where he had just pulled up. Same thing happened to his best mate a few years later.

It was good money though and he loved his job. I imagine in some ways it’s easier now (he died over 20 years ago now) but in some ways harder. My brother drives now and his company are screaming out for new drivers. Getting your license can be hideously expensive but some companies are even helping find that just now to get new drivers.

Long, unsociable hours. Often the risk of being stuck out overnight if your hours run out (unless you have specific hours and only drive relatively close to the depot).

It definitely suits some people, but probably not if you have younger children.