earning Let’s think back to late 2021. Covid is in the rearview mirror, but only just and still hanging around like the Top Gear back up car. Little did our training industry know the media spotlight it was about to fall under. THE HGV DRIVER CRISIS.
IR35. Covid. Brexit. Described as the perfect storm it came to national attention when food shelves were looking more naked than normal, petrol pumps had yellow covers on them indicating emptiness, and us Brits really began to lose it when the threat of Christmas not being delivered on the back of a lorry became a real reality. Anyway, scene set so let’s skip to what happened…
Driver wages spiralled unsustainably upwards and the media painted a picture to anyone that would read or click that you should ditch the degree and become an HGV driver – because they were all reportedly earning £50,000+ ! Actually even back then this wasn’t uncommon, but it certainly wasn’t realistic with new passers expected to magically pull a minimum 6 months driving experience out their backside in order to achieve even a Cat C job, let alone Class 1 where realistically the bigger money was / is. But don’t worry about your next day delivery dear reader, because the government had a plan. A 33 point plan! All details can be found here if curious > https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/hgv-driver-shortage-uk-government-response/about
Of these 33 measures the largest financial and time investment to create new drivers was the HGV Skills Bootcamp. £34 million pounds worth. Anyone that had previously thought of HGV training could now apply for the 10 week Bootcamp at ZERO COST. Naturally a lot applied, and a lot were trained. Yes not all of them went into jobs as there were unfortunately those that like to qualification collect or to play licence top trumps, but it made a positive dent in the problem. Here is the example of the financial year right in the middle of Bootcamps time:
Financial year 2023-2024
| Starts | 10,680 |
| Completions | 7,400 |
| Outcomes | 6,410 |
| Completion rate | 69% |
| Outcome rate (% start) | 60% |
| Outcome rate (% completions) | 87% |
Given the above success and clear demonstration that Completion & Outcome statistics were only improving year on year, it came a surprise when the Bootcamp tap was finally turned off by the end of July 2025. Without this assistance it has clearly resulted in a downtrend of people testing generally according to DVSA statistics and that is bad news for the industry. Back in February 2025 the Road Haulage Association, from the direct hand of Sally Gilson released a brilliant report (to this day I still refer back to regularly for accurate stats and insights -https://tinyurl.com/RHADrivers ) stating this is still ongoing and reports 200,000 HGV drivers needed in next 5 years. But even that projection is old now and been surpassed. Richard Smith, RHA Managing Director within the last week has updated UK requirement for the next 5 years to 60,000 drivers needed per year – 300,000 total.
In short, Boomers are leaving in record numbers, the Bootcamp funding is no more and the DVSA are too heavily focussed on reducing car test waiting times over vocational. Wait, how did it take me this long to mention this? Ah. Maybe one to tackle another day.
But wait! There is good news, and there are still governmental levers to pull and societal change that can be made to help, and for that you’ll have to read about in next weeks solution blog post. For now, I’m off to triple check with the team we have enough DVSA tests over the Christmas period…
