HGV Driver Shortage Update September 2023

This time last year, the HGV industry was apparently on its knees. With a shortage of approximately 100,000 drivers, industry bosses were worried that it could take years for firms to get back to where they should be in terms of recruitment and retention.

Fast forward twelve months, however, and the latest figures seem to show that the industry is heading in the right direction, and is certainly faring better than first feared.

According to Logistics UK, the number of vacancies now stands at around 60,000. This is in comparison to the over 100,000 that was quoted at the start of 2022.

Other sources in the industry tell us that the driver shortage figure is much lower, however, and that due to many industry changes in the last year, there are now relatively few openings for drivers in large swathes of the UK. Whichever way you look at it, it is positive news for the industry and seems to suggest that the driver shortage is now not a major talking point.

During the last twelve years, even before the Covid situation decimated many industries, there was talk that the HGV industry was significantly short of drivers, so this isn’t necessarily a new issue. And whilst it is clear that the last couple of years has given the industry significant strain, we don’t think the driver shortage was as intense as the mainstream media would have the masses believe.

There have been several attempts to help plug driving number gaps. The most recognisable lure to get drivers flocking to the industry has come in the form of wage rises. Many HGV companies offered current drivers increases as well as bonuses, whilst the starting wage for new drivers rose too. The average starting salary for an HGV driver is now around £45,000.

It wasn’t just a monetary issue why some drivers were unhappy though, working conditions seemed to play a part as to why retention wasn’t as good as the industry needed. On the back of this, changes were made to hauliers’ working conditions and the quality of their working environment. There have also been calls for the government to step in to create safer and better equipped rest places for long haul drivers on several of the countries main HGV routes. This is a work in progress.

The industry now has many more drivers, with many of them on much larger wages than pre-2020. The government has also sped up the process of training and testing in a bid to get more young drivers into the industry. They have also recruited more driving instructors to get tests through quicker.

A major breakthrough for getting thousands more drivers into the industry came in the form of the government helping to fund over 10,000 driver training slots. Another one of the problems of getting into the industry was believed to be the cost of training – however, when the government funded thousands of these places, tens of thousands of drivers came through and helped to quash the shortage by a considerable margin.

Another element that the government help added to the driver situation was that more young drivers came through the ranks. The HGV industry has, for many years, had an ageing population and not enough youngsters coming through to take the jobs of drivers ready for retirement. This has now changed with a high percentage of HGV drivers under the age of 36. There are also more female HGV drivers than ever before.

Despite all these positive changes which can only be good for the industry going forward, there is still a lot of work to be done, and this is evident when you speak to several qualified drivers no longer working in the industry.

Many have admitted that there isn’t a driver shortage – there are indeed plenty of qualified drivers - the problem is that not all of them are prepared to do the job once they are qualified because of the inadequate services that they have to put up with. According to many drivers, there has been a decline in the standards of truck stops over the years and many drivers are fed up of not feeling safe at certain stop points. Others bemoan the inadequate provision for truckers, with a majority citing unclean premises for eating and socialising. Many have confessed that they sometimes go for hours without a toilet stop or food simply because the amenities for truckers have declined so much.

Whilst the government has put time, money and effort into getting recruits into the industry, we think it is clear for all to see that recruitment in actual fact is not the biggest issue. There isn’t a shortage of drivers as such, it is the retention of them. And for that to be solved, money must be pumped in quickly to deliver adequate services and keep them at the level expected. New facilities must also be built, and quickly.