notadriver
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How much do you think bus drivers should be paid per hour?
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Bus drivers salary.
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SS4
Established Member
I saw an NXWM ad which was about £9/h
That is shockingly bad! I was expecting at least around the £15 mark. Having googled it it does seem to say between £7 and £11 which is terrible. Also found this little gem..
Now as I say, I don't know about bus driving but this woman knows **** all about train driving. Anyway back on topic
...
Now as I say, I don't know about bus driving but this woman knows **** all about train driving. Anyway back on topic
...northwichcat
Veteran Member
£11 an hour is equivalent to around £21,500 per annum. Why's that terrible? Some people employed with highly specialised skills outside of the transport industry are lucky to get above £18,000 even with a number of years experience.
Minilad
Established Member
Don't know what I will do then as I have been both !!
I notice you took the higher estimation to support your argument, what about the lower end of the scale?
What other people get in other industries has no relevence at all so I'm not sure what point you are trying to make?
Striker
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You should be paid based on your skill level, and bus driving doesn't really require many skills. Some pilots start on around £18,000 per year.
Give bus drivers the minimum wage. Period.
By the way, has anybody taken the Black Prince on a Friday night from Leeds to Wetherby? 760 Service?
Give bus drivers the minimum wage. Period.
By the way, has anybody taken the Black Prince on a Friday night from Leeds to Wetherby? 760 Service?
Depends on the hours worked per week. £21,500 per week equals almost a 43 and a half hour week (assuming a 5 day week and 35 days annual leave p/a), which sounds quite long to me.
northwichcat
Veteran Member
You seem to make out the entire scale quoted was poor so I was making the point that I think the top end is actually a very good salary.
If you say so but in that case a bus drivers can't be compared to any other profession including taxi drivers, lorry drivers or train drivers.
Surely if we're to make judgements about bus driver salaries we have to compare them to other industries!
A big gap has certainly opened up in the last couple of decades between HGV/bus drivers on the one hand and train drivers on the other. Privatisation perhaps? But then buses have also been privatised? Or is it because buses only get subsidised on a small number of specific routes rather than by payments to franchisees as on the railways.
The median full time salary now is £26k which is about £12.50 per hour. This is also about average for graduates in their 1st job.
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=1951
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Bus drivers also have to handle cash and deal with the public (some of them drunk and/or violent), which train conductors do but drivers generally don't.
A big gap has certainly opened up in the last couple of decades between HGV/bus drivers on the one hand and train drivers on the other. Privatisation perhaps? But then buses have also been privatised? Or is it because buses only get subsidised on a small number of specific routes rather than by payments to franchisees as on the railways.
The median full time salary now is £26k which is about £12.50 per hour. This is also about average for graduates in their 1st job.
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=1951
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Bus drivers also have to handle cash and deal with the public (some of them drunk and/or violent), which train conductors do but drivers generally don't.
SS4
Established Member
Are you saying that bus drivers on late night services in inner cities in some areas taking their lives into their hands deserve minimum wage?
Don't forget the unsociable hours, a bus driver has to be ready and waiting for those passengers who have to be in work by 9. Although this could be done with shift allowances there has to be enough in the base rate.
As far as I am concerned they are all in the transport industry.
northwichcat
Veteran Member
Using the same industry but completely different jobs but saying you can't compare between industries is ridiculous.
You're effectively saying an Arriva employed marketer can't be compared to an Arriva employed bus driver because only one of them works in the transport industry but an Arriva bus driver can be compared to a car mechanic because they both work in transport.
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I take it you're referring to London based 1st class graduates only? Most graduate jobs in the North advertise £15,000-£17,000 and not all graduates are able to get one of those jobs.
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No I based it on the standard 37.5 hour working week.
UK law states full time employees get 28 days paid holiday (minimum) per annum, which can include the 8 days bank holiday per year.
37.5x52x11=21450. I rounded to the nearest hundred to give a figure of £21,500 based on £11 an hour with either 20 days holiday plus bank holidays or 28 days holiday not including bank holidays.
There are significant similarities between train driving, bus driving, taxi driving, HGV and pilots. An automotive mechanic may well work with or on transport vehicles but that doesn't necessarily make it part of the transport industry in the same sense as the above professions.
anthony263
Established Member
Most i have been paid is £9 per hour , most of the time it is £7.50-£8.50 per hour. Stagecoach tend to offer the best wages out of the major bus operators in my experience.
some council owned operators do offer very goosd wages, cardiff bus is an example.
drivers involved in national express, megabus, rail replacement & schools work tend to be the best paid or if they are working late or overnight.
i do think wages need to increase to a reasonable level especially considering how hard the job is, although a lot of small operators may struggle. The wages levels do vary where you work, i know some bus drivers in Bristol do get £10 per hour and thats for daytime work.
some council owned operators do offer very goosd wages, cardiff bus is an example.
drivers involved in national express, megabus, rail replacement & schools work tend to be the best paid or if they are working late or overnight.
i do think wages need to increase to a reasonable level especially considering how hard the job is, although a lot of small operators may struggle. The wages levels do vary where you work, i know some bus drivers in Bristol do get £10 per hour and thats for daytime work.
Striker
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Where do you draw the line? People working in McDonalds? Shopkeepers? They're all at risk at night.
How many bus drivers were murdered on duty last year then?
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How HARD the job is? Seriously? Lots of jobs are hard but I think bus driver isn't one of them.
I wasn't being very accurate there. I mean for a "graduate job", one where a degree is a requirement, not for jobs that graduates actually get. 25k is about right for this, based on various sources. However the average graduate with a job is after a year is on about 20k.
For reference my 1st job after graduating, 30 years ago paid 5k plus London weighting - but that wasn't really a "graduate job" either - though with unemployment rising to 3 million, graduates were as today doing any sort of job that was available.
northwichcat
Veteran Member
Here's one that asks for an IT or Business degree in Leeds and the maximum they'll offer is £15,000: http://www.graduatesyorkshire.co.uk/job/44408
Some employers do advertise jobs that can only really be done by a graduate or someone with previous experience in the same sort of role but take advantage of the fact there's a job shortage and offer salaries as low as £12,000.
If you paid a job purely based on how "hard" it is then I am sure a large % of the employed workforce would be paid peanuts... I know I would.
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..and yes I agree it is crap. But that doesn't change the fact that alot of others are on a poor salary. It just means there are some others worse off.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
..and yes I agree it is crap. But that doesn't change the fact that alot of others are on a poor salary. It just means there are some others worse off.
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To be frank, you don't need an IT degree to do that Leeds job, they're basically having a laugh. Of course, there are graduate jobs (internships) where the salary is zero. But we're talking about averages here - "blue chip" jobs are still at the 25-30k region.
90019
Established Member
When did you last drive a bus?
Striker
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There are lots of things I haven't done but I can tell they're not particularly hard.
ralphchadkirk
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"Hard" is subjective. What isn't hard to one person is to another. However, it is fair to say, bus driving isn't in the same league as neurosurgery.
Striker
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Exactly. I have what a lot of people would consider a hard job, but because I am trained, have lots of experience, and ultimately have the ability to DO the job I find it, most of the time, quite mundane.
When I was a student I used to drive vans. Now, trying to find an address you don't know and have never been to before (before sat nav), with an A to Z in one hand, a pork pie in the other, with a mobile ringing in your trouser pocket which is most likely your boss asking where you are with the late delivery, in the pouring rain, at night....that's hard.
However, I fail to see where driving a bus could be described as particularly "hard" and therefore demands a particularly high wage.
Replace the pork pie with a bacon & mushroom or breakfast bap and replace the mobile phone with a cracklling two-way radio and I am with you.
Agreed. It isn't a graduate job. I applied for an undergraduate 1-year placement in ''the North'' that paid more than that.
From my experience, most graduate schemes _do_ pay a salary of around £25k. In the public transport sector: FirstGroup, TfL, Stagecoach and Network Rail pay somewhere around this, and that is only the companies which I have thought off the top of my head who offer a graduate scheme.
Siemens graduate rate is 22-23k for two years, then released onto a department at a higher rate (to say I have a scholarship with them, I should really look at what it is)
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