Feature
Above: Colin Paterson, head of marketing, Red Driver Training
Above: Test slots to obtain a UK driving licence are in short supply.
need no training – all the specialists we spoke to told us they did – more to highlight the variance and the responsibility that comes with recruiting from across the globe.
“One of the biggest challenges is identification,” explains Nigel Lawrence, strategic partnerships director at Applied Driving. “We work with a utilities company, and they’re seeing an increasing number of people come into the country on assignment, and also natural growth in terms of recruitment of full-time employees who don’t hold a UK license. We’re seeing particular trends for African countries at the moment, where the driving is very, very different in the resident country in comparison to the UK.
“What typically happens is that organisations don’t ask the right questions at recruitment and induction… [and] a lot of companies just don’t ask at all, so they’re relying on capturing that information through whoever their [training]
provider is. The risk is that employees might already have driven before we’ve had the chance to get them through that process.”
It is another element that applies to both blue- and white-collar employees. Jim Howard is an approved driving instructor with Roadwise Driver Training in Aberdeen, where the local oil industry is its chief market for UK familiarisation courses. Howard has trained drivers “from Nigeria, the States, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia – all over the world”, and says scheduling is a consistent snag. “It all depends on when the company can fit them [employees] in to do it. Some will have been in the country for two weeks, and they’re out doing the road familiarisation straight away. Some of them have already been there three or four months. “Their guys often go offshore, and I’ve turned up at some companies at nine o’clock in the morning and they say, ‘I’m sorry, he’s offshore’. I’m thinking, ‘you’ve booked these sessions, and sometimes these
Above: Matt Hammond, head of fleet, Altrad and a board director at the Association of Fleet Professionals.
Above: Nigel Lawrence, strategic partnerships director, Applied Driving.
Above: Roundabouts are among the common confusing factors for drivers new to the UK.
Above: Jim Howard, approved driving instructor, Roadwise Driver Training.
www.businesscar.co.uk | May/June 2025 | 29
Milosz Kubiak; Sharkshock/
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