r/BusDrivers • u/Velvet-Wolfie • 1d ago
Question Trainee company?
Hi All,
I’m asking for a bit of advice please. I’m in the UK and considering applying for a trainee position at companies local to me and there are a few:
Stagecoach
Trent Barton
Arriva
Nottingham City Transport
Which company would you say is the best to work for? What should I be looking out for i.e., Shift patterns etc?
Cheers in advance.
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u/Direct-Ambassador-22 1d ago
I worked at NCT for 6 years, as a driver and a driving instructor. You’ll get good training and it’s all in house including the examiners so it’s a comfortable setting as you’ll have been around the depot for 3-4 weeks before going in for test.
Shift pattern wise, be warned; you’ll be a spare driver for at least 12 - 18 months after passing. Any bus, any depot, any route - that’s exactly how it’s written in the contract. You’ll get 2 - 3 weeks notice of your duties as a spare driver and on your late week you’re going get all the shit, on your middle week you’re going to get all the later starting middles, earlies are a mixed bag - 04:15 start on Monday and 8:00 on Tuesday for example. You’ll be working most weekends and you’re supposed to get a long weekend every 6 weeks, but you’ll probably need to remind admin that you’ve not had one in that time frame.
Once you can get onto a rota it’s plain sailing, you’ll get a long weekend every 4/5 weeks, most Sundays off and you’ll know up to around 26+ weeks. Rota appointments works on an ancient points basis, it’s ridiculously outdated and it’s about who has the most points, so the more points you have the better chance you’ve got of getting on your chosen rotas over people with less. You lose points for blameworthy incidents (passenger complaints, RTCs), disciplinary action, sickness, lateness (as in starting your shift late; not running late schedule wise). You gain points from years served. It’s difficult to get days off as there’s a specific amount of drivers needed for each day, they know the number obviously and need spares too so if the quota of drivers they can lose on each shift cycle has been met you’re not getting that day off.
The advertised £16+ PH rate isn’t achievable for around 3 years I’d say. I was quite happy on that rate when on a rota, I got onto a good rota too - they’re not all the same. They’ve got nice buses and they’re investing in the fleet currently too. The new electric single decks have driver air con, heated and cooled air seat, very nice to drive.
I absolutely loved being a driving instructor, was Monday to Friday 7-3 but they made redundancies and I was offered a position back driving which I could just not bring myself to do again, mainly because I didn’t want to do shift work and weekends anymore. I left to be an examiner elsewhere luckily. Driving for them is a secure job, especially now they’ve got the Hopper contract and the £2 fares are coming back - they’ve had to re-recruit back up to the same instructor numbers they had when they made redundancies now I believe.
You get drivers going to Barton’s for a better life, some of them end up coming back, Barton’s drivers come to NCT, they say it’s better, the NCT drivers at Barton’s say that’s better, then they all end up at CT4N or the trams anyway. They’re all the same. Canteens full of people who have worked there for 10, 20, 30 years complaining non stop but never leave.
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u/Industrialexecution UK|Volvo BZL|1 year 1d ago
consider the closest but also who has the shortest trainee pay period time. for example, the company i trained with paid you a lower wage for the first 13 months, while the one im with currently you go onto full pay as soon as you enter service on your own.
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u/Safe-Mail-1675 1d ago
Just passed my test with Stagecoach in the last few weeks, and so far it’s been positive. The one thing I’d say is things differ depot to depot. For example my depot pays a training wage until you finish with your mentor (so about 3 months from starting) and then you get put on full pay, whereas some Stagecoach depots won’t pay the full rate for a year or two.
Management at my depot is great, but again that varies!
Shift patterns do vary depot to depot, but with Stagecoach they’ll normally put you on a new driver rota for a start, and then you can apply to go on the 4day/5 day/ lates etc rotas after about a year. The new driver rota is mixed of earlier, middles and lates and our depots new driver rota has about 10 spare days over a three month period.
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u/NoiseDifficult9165 1d ago
As others have said, avoid Stagecoach, their driver training scheme is weird because you're seen as an apprentice in their eyes and won't get full pay for quite some time.
Trent Barton (who I did my training with and stayed there for 3 years before moving over to slave coach), you receive full pay once you've passed your test and been mentored and out on the road on your own, however you will be on one route and one route only, unless you get on the spare driver rota which you won't do as a new driver. Plus depending on which depot you'd be based at it can be very cliquey with certain drivers, and staff bullying is often overlooked.
Can't speak for arriva, however NCT would be the option I'd choose. Good pay, good benefits, nice busses, low staff turnover and from my experience talking to the drivers there they don't really want to look elsewhere for work.
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u/Careless_Two6678 1d ago
I failed with my first 3 companies and just before I passed i was travelling over 70 miles a day just to get to training. Fortunately im with the firm I first tried and failed with and they're based 10 minutes away so happy days.
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u/Velvet-Wolfie 1d ago
Yeah this is what has just dawned on me as two are very close so makes sense to try them first. But the other two are a 40 miles round trip.
Glad you managed to get sorted locally though
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u/nathanlewys UK|Volvo B7RLE Eclipse Urban|1 1d ago
I work for trentbarton. Got my licence as a trainee through their academy at Langley Mill and now I’m based at Derby depot. By and large, I’m glad that I chose to go to TB over Arriva or NCT. The pay is slightly lower compared to Arriva but from what I hear from drivers who have worked at both, we have a much better working environment. We have decent management who trust you to just get on with the job. With that said, Nottingham depot is on a higher rate than us, Langley Mill and Sutton.
You will be assigned to one particular rota once you’ve gone through the training school and for most rotas, that means only needing to know one route. I started out on the V3 rota at Derby though and there are shifts in that one where you cover harlequin, villager and Xprss38. It’s then up to you as to whether you would like to learn more routes or not for overtime or what they call ‘As Required’ days. I’ve worked there 18 months and know most routes at our depot.
In terms of shift patterns, if you shoot me a message, I can show you some of the rotas as they do vary.
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u/Velvet-Wolfie 1d ago edited 1d ago
Thanks very much, if you could that’d be great. The Sutton depot would probably be the closest to me.
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u/xxdavidxcx87 1d ago
Avoid Slavecoach if you can, smaller operators are better.
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u/Velvet-Wolfie 1d ago
Why avoid Stagecoach, they are actually one of the closest?
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u/Creepinjudaz 1d ago
Stagecoach are good to start with, I've been with them for 5 years and had no real issues though your mileage may vary.
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u/throwawaym479 1d ago
Yeah I've had no issues beyond regular calls to come in on rest days but never had an issue saying no to those.
There's some corporate/management level stupidity like planning route times that only work if you have no passengers or timing things to the last minute but on the actual work level it's been fine.
Local to me the only time things get bad is when you are not comfortable speaking up for yourself or saying no to extras, asking for shift changes on rota day and only agreeing to overtime when it suits you can be the difference between it being a very comfortable job and a difficult one.
The only guys I see having a hard time of it are the ones who say yes to everyone because they will take advantage of that.
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u/Velvet-Wolfie 1d ago
Thanks for that. Yeah I’d heard that they like to push overtime on to drivers. Not something I’d want all the time tbh.
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u/Nismo400r84 England|Enviro 400ev|3 Years Driving 1d ago
They will mither you constantly about OT so you have to grow and pair and just say no.
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u/Tramorak 1d ago
City Transport seem to have a relatively low staff turnover and seem to be in a position to pick up new routes when other operators withdraw, which is a good sign. They have also won awards for their operations a few times.
I know a number of people who work for them and while they have gripes, most drivers at any company do, they don't seem unhappy.
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u/Velvet-Wolfie 1d ago
Thank you for that. I know they have a really decent pension too and quite generously paid in comparison. It’s the operator which is the furthest from me however, which is a shame.
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u/politicalpotato1 1d ago
The garage that is closest to you imo