If you drive for a living, you already know the sight: a high-vis jacket at the roadside, a raised hand, a wave towards the inspection bay. It’s a DVSA Traffic Examiner, one of the people authorised to check your tachograph, inspect your paperwork, and decide whether your journey continues.
Now the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency is recruiting 19 new examiners across Britain and the job comes with a surprise. The people enforcing haulage law can earn more than the average HGV driver, even though they need far fewer qualifications to do it.
According to earlier Trans.INFO analysis, the average UK lorry driver earns around £32,000–£33,000 a year. That’s after investing thousands of pounds in a Category C or C+E licence, Driver CPC training every five years, and regular medicals to stay on the road.
By contrast, Traffic Examiners only need a Category B car licence, the same one most people get at 17.
No HGV licence, no CPC, no years of cab experience. Yet these jobs pay between £30,485 and £43,544 a year, depending on location and shift pattern. In London and certain specialist posts, the total can comfortably exceed what many experienced drivers take home after a decade behind the wheel.
That gap isn’t just about money. It also says something about how differently the two sides of the roadside check are valued.
Where the new examiners will work
DVSA is hiring right across the map: Aberdeen, Inverness, Livingston, Llantrisant, Beverley, Wolverhampton, Grantham, Stafford (Doxey), Kirkham, Chelmsford, Farnborough, Chippenham, Warminster and Peterborough.
Three more posts sit in the London area (Belvedere (Bexleyheath), Tottenham (Edmonton) and Leatherhead), while two belong to the High-Risk Traffic Initiative in Leatherhead and Carlisle, covering ports and busy freight corridors where night-time checks are routine.
Applications are open until 17 November 2025.
Regional roles start at £30,485, rising to £43,544 for London and shift-working posts. The Carlisle High-Risk post offers £39,544.
Each job includes a 28.97 % pension contribution, 25–30 days of leave, eight bank holidays and an extra day for the King’s birthday. Benefits few drivers can match.
A look behind the roadside checks
So what exactly do these examiners do once they put on the jacket?
They work at motorway services, ports and fixed enforcement sites, checking that vehicles and operators comply with rules on drivers’ hours, tachographs, vehicle weights, operator licensing, vehicle tax and Construction & Use standards.
If something doesn’t add up, they can issue prohibition notices, fixed penalties or prepare case files for the Traffic Commissioner or the courts.
It’s a job that mixes fieldwork with paperwork, collecting evidence, writing reports and, when needed, appearing as witnesses in legal proceedings.
And while it’s not a physically easy role, the work involves climbing in and out of cabs, long hours outdoors and shift patterns that include nights, examiners receive extensive DVSA training before stepping into it.
What DVSA is looking for
To apply, you only need that full UK car licence, the ability to work shifts and nights away from home, and a particular set of skills: clear communication, the ability to interpret data such as tachograph records, and the resilience to keep calm when a driver is anything but.
New recruits complete an 18-week training course, partly at DVSA’s centres in Avonmouth and Chadderton, and partly online. The programme covers legislation, evidence handling and enforcement procedures, everything needed to make enforcement decisions at the roadside.
So while drivers invest time and money in professional qualifications and renewals, examiners complete their training for the role in just a few months – and at no personal cost.
