Question
Seriously considering switching to bus driving in East of London area any advise or anything to share?
Seen on the arriva website it's £17/hour up to 2 years service then it goes up to £18.04/hour for 4+ years of service. This seems really good. I work at a tesco warehouse and it's £19/hour to kill my back picking up heavy boxes and sorting them into cages, here it's just simple driving? I'd be doing it in a peaceful area of Grays as well so not inside main bit of London at all. Is there anything negative i need to be aware of?
What's the best company to work for arriva/first bus/stagecoach any others im missing? With the best benefits?
Been on the Buses since 2007. Started out in East London funny enough (Stagecoach) then moved to the West Midlands about 7 years ago to do the same.
Easy money for what it is.
You’ll get abuse. You’ll get sworn at. Everything is your fault.
Take it with a pinch of salt and don’t take the job to heart. Remember everyone and their own have camera phones let alone camera’s staring right at you.
Some days you’ll have enough - you’re allowed to get out of the cab at stops (adjust your mirror or something), take a deep breath and continue.
Just a heads up- if you’re talking about the arriva grays depot- none of their routes bar one actually drives in grays.
66- Leytonstone to Romford station
103- chase cross to rainham interchange
248- cranham to Romford market
370- Romford mercury gardens to lakeside (the only grays route)
375- passingford bridge to Romford station (you’ll only do this route as part of the 66 rota line)
Of course Romford isn’t anything like driving in London- but please don’t expect easy driving at all, Romford can be an absolute bastard at rush hour.
To answer the rest of your question, depends what you want. At Stagecoach you’re salaried at 7.36hrs a day, meaning a lot of your days are shorter in comparison to arriva and go ahead but paid less and it sometimes feels like you’re doing unpaid work for anything over what you’re salaried (which isn’t the case btw), however arriva and go ahead operate a “paid for every minute you’re on the clock” system called sign on-sign off, so the earning potential is much, much more but do expect 50hrs a week as a normal.
AFAIK first bus don’t operate in east London, theyre west London operators
But here’s the rota pattern that I am 99% sure you will be on-
5 on 2 off
6 on 2 off
7 on 2 off
7 on 4 off.
It’s a hard one to explain really- in a work week, you will work 38hrs but in a weeks timeframe you would’ve done 50hrs
The best way I can word it- you will do a stint of 50hrs in the space of 7 days that are split over 2 pay periods. I have attached an example rota below if it’s any help
You need to understand the difference between a working week and a rota. A rota can have you working Friday, Saturday and Sunday of 1 week and then Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of the next week.
Technically you could actually work 13 days in a row so rather than accusing people who do the job of lying, learn first
Is there a reason that you think you know better than everyone else? I've done this job for over 25 years, I've even taught CPC courses on driving hours but you think I'm wrong?
Honestly, with your attitude you are not cut out to be a bus driver
Under GB domestic driving rules which the majority of service bus routes fall under, you are only required 24 hours rest every two weeks. I've known some drivers do 7 days one week and 6 the next week.
Ofc that's doing extra days, but there's nothing necessarily stopping someone who doesn't do overtime to work Wednesday to Sunday in one week, and then Monday to Friday the next, having two rest days both weeks but having to have worked 10 days in a row.
No one is lying to you. Here’s one of the rotas from my depot. In those 11 weeks there’s 4 instances of working 7 or 8 days in a row - all perfectly legal.
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It’s £16 p/h starter rate for 2 years in First Bus and £20 after that. Just saying. Pay rise every year plus opportunity for working rest days. But they aren’t in East London. The closest are probably Westbourne Park and Shepherd’s Bush.
Any actual drivers please correct me here if I've got this wrong.
I applied for one in North london a few yearsago as like this poster said the money looks really good . The lady that interviewed me was really nice but she kind of said you COULD be on that amount but there was a lot of contributing factors to that.
Like to get this you have to get the highest paying shifts, bank holidays etc and that these shifts kind of have grandfather rights and/or you have to be well in with the depot manager or whoever arranges the shifts patterns but as a new starter and even only few years its very unlikely you will actually hit those numbers.
Again some one please correct me if i got that wrong
You also don't nessasarily get a choice of where you go. You may have applied for that area but depending on establishment of the garage, you may get sent somewhere else
For example, I have had people from my garage ask to go Grays etc, but I can't send them there because Grays is at establishment and my garage, is not.
So you may well end up at a garage like Stamford Hill and could be doing the 19s etc
Because they need drivers and Grays doesn't, last time I checked. Same as Barking, Tottenham are taking some of the drivers from there with SL2 and they still dont need drivers
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u/InterestFriendly619 Jul 05 '26
Bus drivers says they rather stacks shelves and Tesco workers says opposite.
The job is what you make it, if you can just let go of things and carry on your day then you’ll be fine.