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Mar 19 2025

Skills shortages ease, but risks to the logistics workforce remain

The number of HGV drivers in employment may have risen in the last quarter of 2024, according to the latest data from the Labour Force Survey (February, 2025) but business group Logistics UK is warning the sector against complacency that employment issues are over for the industry.

 

The survey reveals that 36,000 more HGV drivers were employed in the last quarter of 2024 compared with the same period in 2023, demonstrating an increase in activity across the economy: 30,000 of the new drivers employed were from the UK. But while the news indicates an improvement in the logistics market, as Bethany Windsor, Head of Skills Policy at Logistics UK indicates, the issues facing employers in the industry have not yet been resolved:

“Today’s figures are encouraging news for our sector,” she says, “indicating as they do an uptick in employment prospects for drivers and other logistics workers. But perennial challenges for our sector, like an ageing workforce and limited new entrants to the profession, persist. As a profession, we still need to do more to attract the next generation of talent, while retaining those who have already chosen to join the logistics workforce.”

 

Almost half (48.7%) of HGV drivers currently employed in the UK are aged 50 or older, posing real risks of future shortages as retirements increase. And while salaries advertised for drivers rose almost 4% in the final quarter of 2024, compared to the previous year, vacancies rose by more than 33%, and the number of HGV tests taken in the year to November 2024 dropped by more than 20% year on year, meaning that businesses must do more to appeal to future generations of drivers. Read more

 

Source: LOGISTICS UK