HGV driving is one of the few careers where a few weeks of training can move you onto £40,000 or more without a degree. Pay depends far more on licence class, shift pattern and overtime than it does on the region you live in.
What UK HGV drivers earn
| Role | Hourly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Newly qualified Class 2 | £13 – £15 | £28,000 – £34,000 |
| Experienced Class 2 | £14 – £18 | £32,000 – £40,000 |
| Newly qualified Class 1 | £14 – £17 | £30,000 – £38,000 |
| Experienced Class 1 | £16 – £22 | £40,000 – £55,000 |
| Class 1 nights / tramping with overtime | £18 – £25 | £55,000 – £75,000+ |
Ranges reflect advertised UK vacancies and vary by region, employer and shift pattern.
Class 1 vs Class 2 pay
A Class 1 (C+E) licence typically pays £2 to £4 an hour more than equivalent Class 2 (Category C) work, and there are considerably more Class 1 vacancies. Over a year that gap is usually £5,000 to £10,000, which is why most people train straight to Class 1 rather than passing Class 2 first.
What you earn as a newly qualified driver
Expect £13 to £16 an hour to begin with. Plenty of employers — particularly supermarket distribution and parcel networks — run new-pass schemes with mentoring, and pay steps up noticeably after your first six to twelve months on the road.
Live vacancies that explicitly welcome new passes are listed on our HGV jobs board.
What pushes driver pay up
- Nights — commonly £1 to £3 an hour extra, and the best-paid trunking work
- Overtime — the single biggest factor in reaching £55,000+
- Tramping — nights out attract a tax-free subsistence payment on top of wages
- ADR and Hiab tickets — specialist work pays a clear premium
- Weekends and bank holidays — often time and a quarter or more
Extra tickets are covered on our additional training page.
Take-home pay after tax
Gross salary is not what lands in your account. On £40,000 a year a typical driver takes home around £2,500 a month after income tax, National Insurance and a workplace pension. Our HGV salary calculator models your tax code, pension contributions, student loan plan, overtime and holiday accrual so you can see weekly, monthly and annual take-home.
Working out whether the training pays for itself? See how much an HGV licence costs — on typical first-year earnings, most drivers cover it within a few months.
Where the best-paid work is
Vacancy volumes and pay track the big distribution corridors: the Midlands, the North West, the South East and around major ports. Our regional job pages show how many live vacancies each area is carrying right now, and our salary blog includes a video breakdown of real London supermarket earnings.