Everything you need to know about starting a driving career
Career

Everything you need to know about starting a driving career

For most people, driving is just a necessity. It’s simply a way to get from A to B. But some people absolutely love being out on the open road. If you’re one of those people, have you ever thought about driving as a career? If you don’t mind spending long periods driving with only yourself and the radio for company, you’re well suited to a career as a delivery driver. You can earn good money and you don’t have to be stuck in an office all day long. If you’re looking for a career change and you think delivery driving might be for you, here’s everything you need to know to get started.

The Downsides Of Driving As A Job

Before we look at how to start a career as a driver, it’s important to consider some of the downsides. Just because you like taking the car out for a long drive on a sunny weekend afternoon, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll love driving as a job. One of the major downsides is that your work/life balance isn’t always great. Often, you’ll be doing long routes and you’ll have to stay overnight in places before driving home. That means you might not be getting as much time with the family as you’d like. It can also impact your sleeping patterns if you’re doing overnight deliveries, so it isn’t always ideal for people that value family time above all else. The other thing that you’ve got to consider is that the routes themselves aren’t always that exciting. You’re not going to be driving around quaint country roads, it’s mainly going to be motorways and industrial estates, so not quite as picturesque. But if you don’t think that those downsides will be an issue for you, you can look into finding work as a driver.

Getting The Right License

Obviously, you’ll need a driving license, but that will only allow you to drive smaller vehicles like a van that is 3.5 tonnes and under. If you want to drive any larger delivery vehicles, you’ll need to take another test and get a higher category license. You’ll need to pass a medical and written test as well as another driving test. Once you’ve got that license you can start applying for jobs.

Recruitment Companies

There are a lot of driving jobs out there but there are also a lot of qualified drivers, so it can be pretty competitive. The best way to find good driving jobs is to go through a recruitment agency like Pure Staff who can put you in touch with companies that are looking for drivers. You might be able to source work on your own but it’s a lot easier to go through a recruitment agency.

Alternative Driving Jobs

Delivery driving isn’t the only driving job out there and some of the others are a lot more flexible. You could consider driving a taxi through Uber, doing food deliveries, or doing more local deliveries for small businesses. The work/life balance tends to be better with these jobs so if that’s important to you, you might be better off doing those rather than long haul deliveries.

A driving career is ideal for people that hate being stuck in an office all day and prefer to get out and about. As long as you can put up with the downsides, it’s a great career to get into.

Claire x

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