The UK can count HGV test passes, licences and vacancies, but it still cannot say how many newly qualified drivers enter into paid work and remain there. A new Fueler Consulting report, ‘Driving Blind’ says that blind spot leaves the sector poorly equipped to prevent another driver shortage.
Five years after the 2021 driver shortage exposed the fragility of Britain’s haulage labour market, the warning signs are appearing again - but this time, according to Marc Fels, founder of Fueler Consulting, the problem is not only the shortage. The main issue is the lack of basic data infrastructure needed to understand who is entering the market, who is leaving, why deliveries are being missed and whether newly qualified drivers the risk they are often assumed to be.
The report is the third part of Fueler’s UK HGV driver market analysis series. It follows earlier work on the broken transition from licence acquisition to paid work, and on the insurance restrictions that can prevent newly qualified drivers from getting their first HGV job. Their latest report broadens the argument, saying that the UK has no live dashboard for HGV driver availability, no national employment-outcome tracking for newly qualified drivers, no real-time vacancy index, no national driver health baseline and no sector-wide system for learning from near-misses before they become serious incidents.
The report points to data, which was already five months old when published by the Department for Transport’s Road Freight Statistics in May 2026, which showed a 31% HGV driver vacancy rate in Q3 2025, 23% missed deliveries in Q4 2025 and driver pay 18% below the all-employee median. For a market that can shift quickly, the report argues that quarterly or delayed figures is a serious weakness, as they are not enough to spot the next shortage before it becomes operationally disruptive.
One of the central claims in the report is that the UK records parts of the driver journey but does not connect them. DVSA records the tests passed, DVLA records the licences, HMRC records employment, but no national system links these together to answer how many newly qualified HGV drivers are in paid employment 12 months after passing their test?
The driver shortage debate often focuses on training numbers, but Fueler argues that training output alone is the wrong measure if newly qualified drivers then struggle to find work, leave the sector or never become part of the active professional driver pool.
The report calls for a ‘journey tracker’ for newly qualified drivers to follow the route from test pass to paid driving work, as well as: a national live vacancy tracker where newer drivers could be found by employers and agencies; better attribution of missed deliveries; a national driver wellbeing score; and near-miss reporting.
Without these systems, the report warns that policy and funding decisions are being made without knowing which part of the pipeline has failed and the sector may be entering another tightening cycle without having built the systems needed to manage it.