As many as 110,000 UK lorry drivers may have stepped away from the profession after failing to renew their Driver Qualification Cards, according to RHA figures that suggest Britain’s driver shortage has not disappeared — only been hidden by weaker freight demand.
The trade body says reduced freight movements are hiding the true scale of the problem, while new figures suggest a sharp fall in the number of drivers holding an up-to-date Driver Qualification Card.
According to the RHA’s refreshed driver shortage analysis, published in September 2025, around 110,000 HGV drivers did not renew their Driver Qualification Cards in December 2024. The association says the current number of drivers with an up-to-date DQC stands at 586,597, down from 684,000 in 2024, based on Aricia Ltd data.
The RHA says retirement explains part of the decline, but not the sharp fall-off in the 35–44 age group. These are working-age drivers in the middle of their careers, and the association says long hours are cited as a key reason for leaving the sector.
The warning comes after several years in which driver shortage pressures have moved in and out of view depending on the state of the freight market. When demand is weak, operators may feel less immediate pressure to recruit. However, the RHA argues that the underlying workforce problem remains unresolved and could re-emerge quickly if freight volumes recover.
The association is calling on the government to make short-course driver training available through the Growth and Skills Levy. It says the demand for levy flexibility has been the same since the Apprenticeship Levy was launched in 2017.
The RHA says the sector needs to recruit, train and retain tens of thousands of drivers every year to meet future demand, especially as the workforce continues to age.
Training is only part of the problem
However, the driver shortage debate is not only about funding training places. A separate issue is whether newly qualified drivers can actually get into paid work once they have passed their tests.
As Trans.INFO reported in May, a new report by Marc Fels of Fueler Consulting challenged UK fleet insurers to publish the data behind the common two-year experience rule that can keep newly qualified HGV drivers out of work.
The report argues that the UK has spent heavily on training new drivers since the 2021 shortage, while leaving the employment barrier largely untouched. Newly qualified drivers may hold the licence, the CPC and the willingness to work, but still struggle to find a first driving job because operators and agencies are often constrained by insurance requirements.
According to the report, the barrier can come from several directions: fleet insurance restrictions, agency negligence cover requirements and operator caution at renewal time. Even where a policy technically allows a newly qualified driver, operators may still avoid taking the risk if one claim could affect the cost of cover across the whole fleet.
This creates a structural gap between qualification and employability. In practical terms, the industry may train new drivers and then leave some of them unable to build the experience insurers require.
The report does not argue that new drivers carry no risk. Instead, it questions whether a fixed two-year rule is supported by publicly available UK HGV claims data. It calls for insurers to show the actuarial evidence behind the threshold, including claims frequency, severity and cost data for newly qualified drivers compared with experienced drivers.
This point is directly relevant to the RHA’s latest warning. If the UK needs tens of thousands of drivers entering and staying in the sector each year, the route from training to work needs to be usable. Otherwise, funded training may increase the number of licence holders without solving the labour shortage on the road.
The issue also affects younger recruits. The RHA says attracting young people into road transport is key to future-proofing the industry, but new entrants face one of the hardest transitions if operators cannot insure them affordably at the start of their careers.
