(30 Mar 2018, 9:39 pm)James101 wrote Still just around £30/week better off than minimum wage (40hr week). And realistically not much room for progression long term. As services are cut and depots are closed there's steadily less management roles available. The larger groups are increasingly training managers from grad schemes, who generally just have to sit their PCV as a exercise in context - likely to only really be behind the wheel in dire emergencies.  

The market has cheapened what once once a career for life, and the industry will soon find itself in a right mess. For a young person these days, pursuing a career in bus driving just doesn't add up, they'd make more money doing almost anything else.

The minimum wage for apprentices over the age of 25 is £3.50 ph.
So, when you take in to account the salary on offer and apply the 20% off the job training rule that apprentices must follow (meaning 8 hours doing theory from a 40 hour working week), then I don't think it's bad at all.

I agree with some of your comments about the market cheapening a career for life, but I think we all appreciate that a proportion of drivers don't want progression. They're happy doing the driving and having seen examples of some of the stories shared on the forum about drivers retiring after 40 years behind the wheel, I don't think the lack of progression is necessarily a new thing.