LOGISTICS, FREIGHT & TRANSPORTATION


Britain’s HGV driver shortage crisis


By Carl Hughes, managing director of Hughes Driver Training


skilled HGV drivers. Brexit legislation has led to 79,000 EU workers in


W


the UK being forced to return to their home countries, leaving more than 60% of storage and transport businesses struggling to find skilled drivers due to the UK's reliance on international labour. The shortage of HGV drivers is only set to get worse


in the near future with some sources quoting an estimated shortfall of 257,000 by 2022. With only 2% of trained commercial drivers being


under the age of 25 and the majority of the ageing driver workforce being over 48 years old, a huge number of the HGV workforce are due to retire soon, only adding to the ongoing shortage. We may start to see a drastically different logistics


industry arise as the economy comes out the other side of this pandemic. It's becoming clear that businesses may be left to train their own drivers as demand far exceeds the number of trained HGV drivers nationwide. Although businesses may be reluctant to initially


invest in training their own fleet of drivers, doing so can be a much better alternative to hiring already trained drivers. These are just some of the advantages:


LESS RELIANCE ON EXTERNAL SKILLED DRIVER SUPPLY Companies that choose to train their own drivers won't be as hard hit by the increased demand for HGV drivers in the future, as it becomes harder and harder to fill these roles. With a fully


hile the logistics industry has largely thrived during the pandemic as online shopping trends accelerated, it has been held back from reaching its true potential by a shortage in


FEATURE


business network March 2021 69


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