Operators build driver pipelines as 60,000-a-year shortage bites

The RHA's number hasn't moved and it still lands hard: the UK needs 60,000 new HGV drivers a year, every year, for the next five years, just to stand still. That's not a recruitment target, it's a demographic cliff edge - 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 - a three-year in-house progression from zero to fully qualified. (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.