Driver shortage: fleets build their own pipelines

Plus 11 more: BIK, ULEZ and residuals moves UK fleets need this week. · 12 stories · 08 Sep 2026

THRIVE is independent fleet intelligence, direct to your inbox. Each Tuesday we read the UK fleet market at the source and send you the developments that actually change a fleet decision - every claim linked to where it came from. A short read.

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The RHA's number lands hard: the UK needs to train 60,000 new HGV drivers a year for the next five years to meet increasing demand and replace those leaving the sector. Behind it sits an ageing workforce: the average truck driver is about 50, more than a third are 55 or older, and fewer than 5% are under 25. Do the maths on retirement alone and the shortage isn't a future risk, it's arriving now. (SMMT)

What's changed is who's actually doing something about it. Cambridgeshire-based Knowles Logistics has launched a Driver Academy apprenticeship: eight months long, open to anyone 18+ with a Category B licence, delivered with training provider TRS to a Level 2 qualification. Apprentices work through a five-day Urban Driver course plus ten days of Class One and Class Two training - a structured pipeline rather than the old sink-or-swim approach to licence acquisition. (SMMT)

Evri's Driving Academy, running out of Normanton, Avonmouth and Hemel Hempstead, delivered 113 new HGV licences in 2025. Ellie-Mae Saddington is the example SMMT points to: Class 2 in 2023, Class 1 first time in 2025, both through the Evri scheme - an in-house progression from transit van driver to Class 1. (SMMT)

Elsewhere, Hughes Driver Training - operating since 1989 - has partnered with the RHA to offer discounted training to RHA members, which lowers the cost barrier for smaller operators who can't run their own academy. Suffolk New College's Logistics Academy, working with Road to Logistics, runs a six-to-eight-week Warehouse to Wheels course and a longer Driver Ready Development programme of ten to fourteen weeks that includes work experience with a local operator. Different entry points, same destination: more routes into the cab that don't depend on a driver already owning a licence. (SMMT)

Why it matters: this is a supply problem before it's a cost problem, and the two are linked. Every unfilled cab means idle kit, missed SLAs or a bidding war for agency drivers that pushes wage costs into your rate card whether you like it or not. The academies above show the shortage is answerable with structured investment and lead time - months, not weeks - but only if operators start building their own pipeline instead of waiting for the market to fix itself. Those who don't will keep paying premium rates to poach from those who do.

The decision for fleet operators isn't whether to worry about 60,000-a-year; it's whether to build or rent a training pipeline before the next retirement wave hits.

(Source: Smmt · SMMT)

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The perennial choice between a company car and a cash allowance still trips up drivers and fleet managers alike, and fresh guidance from Fleet Evolution sets out why the answer is rarely as simple as "take the cash." Get the comparison wrong and you either overpay tax unnecessarily or hand an employee a scheme that leaves them exposed on insurance, maintenance and depreciation risk they didn't sign up for.

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Chevin has added Lightfoot to the FleetWave Store, letting operators pull driver behaviour scoring straight into the same system that already handles compliance and asset records. For anyone juggling separate logins for telematics, servicing and driver conduct, that's one less spreadsheet bridging the gaps between them, per Chevin Fleet.

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Logistics UK has put its name to a fresh driver health push, and the numbers behind it explain why this is a compliance issue as much as a wellbeing one. Figures from the Structured Health Intervention for Truckers (SHIFT) study of HGV drivers, cited by the trade body, put 88% of the drivers studied in the overweight or obese category, with 67% carrying high cholesterol - a workforce risk profile that any operator relying on that same pool of drivers for years to come cannot simply file under HR.

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Škoda has hit one million Karoq units built and marked it with a new Black Edition, on order from 1 October 2026. For fleets running the Karoq as a mid-size SUV staple, it's another trim to weigh up rather than a shake-up - but check the spec sheet and pricing before renewal quotes land. (Škoda)

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Honda's Super-N has picked up Best Value Car at the 2026 What Car? Electric Car Awards, with pricing from £18,995 putting a genuine sub-£19k EV back on the fleet shopping list at a time when small electric cars remain thin on the ground. For operators running pool cars or last-mile fleets, that's a rare sighting these days. (Honda)

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Refuse and recycling operators are pressing ahead with heavy-duty electric trucks. Powerday has taken two electric Volvo FM Low Entry hookloaders with Boughton bodywork, each carrying 360 kWh across four traction batteries and expected to cover up to 30,000km a year off existing 150kW DC chargers at Willesden Junction.

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Loveelectric has published a rundown on what an electric car actually costs to run each month versus a petrol or diesel equivalent, aimed at individual drivers weighing up the cost of going electric. For anyone building a business case for EV adoption, the piece is a reminder that the monthly number, not the P11D price, is the one that tends to carry the argument with a driver or a finance director. (Loveelectric) The effect on fleet running costs can be followed week by week in the THRIVE Fleet Cost Index.

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EE has switched on Fast Lane on its 5G+ network, which EE bills as a UK first and which quietly reshuffles connections into a dedicated high-performance lane when the network gets busy, rather than letting everyone fight over the same congested pipe (BT Group). EE says Fast Lane is designed for high-footfall moments such as rush hour and major events, so for fleets it is drivers' phones and apps that benefit, not hardwired telematics units.

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Motive's mobile card can be loaded straight into Apple, Google or Samsung wallets and issued to a driver's phone the moment they need it, rather than waiting on a physical card to be produced and posted out (Motive). For a fleet onboarding a new driver mid-week, or replacing a lost card on a Friday, that lag has always been the annoying bit.

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£5,250 - the retail margin Dealer Auction recorded on the Range Rover Evoque in its over-£10,000 chart, the top figure in that chart, in what Dealer Auction calls its third record-breaking month in a row. For anyone buying used stock to fill demonstrator or grey fleet gaps, it suggests cheap buy-ins are getting harder to find. (Dealer Auction)

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Stoke-on-Trent City Council wants 26 new petrol self-charging hybrids, bought outright rather than leased, for what the notice calls a demanding time critical service. No plug, no charge-point dependency, just a hybrid drivetrain expected to earn its keep on hard-worked duty cycles. (Find a Tender)

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