ADR Licence – The Key to Your New Tanker Driver Career

If you currently hold your HGV Class 2 Cat C licence or you’re just starting out on your driving career, you could be looking at ways to move your career forwards or to maximise your earning potential. The most obvious route to achieving these goals is to qualify as a tanker driver by obtaining your ADR licence and in this blog, we take a look at how you go about getting qualified, as well as exactly what it means for your personal income.

What exactly is an ADR licence?

ADR stands for Accord Dangerous Routier, which roughly translates to European Agreement on the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road. The holder of this licence is qualified to drive tankers of all sizes, which often contain liquids like milk, petrol or other volatile or toxic materials.

So, how do you qualify for your ADR?

Well, firstly, you’ll need to be at least 18 years of age, have 2 or more years of lorry driving experience and hold a valid and up to date CPC card . There are three distinct paths you can take to qualify for your ADR licence and they are:

Option 1:

You train alongside qualified people, learning the ropes as you go. This will be one of the routes taken by drivers holding a standard Cat 2 HGV licence.

Option 2:

The second option is getting your training from scratch. In this case all you need is your CAT B car licence and we’ll train you for CAT C licence & ADR. Don’t worry if you’re funding your training yourself though, as most good trainers, like ours, will offer a monthly payment scheme called TRAIN NOW PAY LATER.

Earning Potential

Whilst there might be a great deal of work involved in qualifying as a tanker driver, the rewards on offer certainly make it worth the effort. For example, according to one of the largest online job websites, indeed.co.uk, the average salary of a HGV Class 2 driver as around £27k.

Compare that, if you will to the average salary for a tanker driver, which is much more impressive and in the region of £45k. There are 100s of openings available for this kind of work in a place like London, Manchester and Birmingham. To those with the ambition and the drive to do it, specialist tanker driving offers access to an interesting and lucrative new career path.

Like to Find out More?

At HGVT, we operate the largest network of CPC and ADR training centres in the United Kingdom, with more than 60 running to date. Our industry expertise and knowledge allows us to provide high-quality training to cater to all your professional driving needs.

So, if you would like to look into getting your ADR licence and you’d prefer to not to take the scenic route to achieve it, then we’d love to hear from you. Thanks for reading. We hope our blog has highlighted the earning and career potential that exists in HGV tanker driving and how accessible it is those with the drive to succeed.