How much would you pay for your training ?

[HLE]

@ComUtoR

Given the salary & conditions now on offer, I'd say 5-10k at least. For OPC tests and rules 1 & 2. If you don't pass them all, you don't get on a TOC course for handling and routes. That'd cut the cost of those that fail on rules (and tbh I reckon the f-up rate once passed out) for the TOC.

It'd stop those who have a reality check when they get the job.

From my perspective, given previous salary, conditions and training costs paid out in the past in accountancy, which were several thousand, and given the pay in that industry compared to the railway and the security it offers its worth 5-10k all day in my view.

 

[HLE]

How much is a Degree nowdays?

A lot.

And given the calibre of accounting graduates I've interviewed in the past, they're a waste of money in most cases. 40k easy and that usually won't get you fully certified never mind ACA which is the top qualification.

 

[HLE]

From experience, not this job. It will get you sooner rather than later.

Easiest job to lose, hardest to get. Been said on here and in many cabs before.

 

[SlimJim1694]

It's perfectly possible to be competent at a job you hate, however. Lots of people are in that position.

Very true. Imagine wasting your life like that though. 45 years doing something you hate. You'd be more than ready for the boneyard after that. What a waste.

 

[HLE]

Very true. Imagine wasting your life like that though. 45 years doing something you hate. You'd be more than ready for the boneyard after that. What a waste.

Very true. Several drivers I can think of right now fit this bill.

 

[irish_rail]

The standard of candidates would be shocking. Kiss goodbye to any diversity also. Every candidate would likely be a white Male , rail enthusiast.

 

[Bucephalus]

2K. Because I live in London. If I lived in an area that had only one depot then it would be more like £30

 

[HLE]

The standard of candidates would be shocking. Kiss goodbye to any diversity also. Every candidate would likely be a white Male , rail enthusiast.

I disagree. Offer a secure job with good pay and conditions and you'll have a wide range of people up for it.

Put it this way, in the past I've been audited by the 2 of the big four. White & male? They were the minority. They didn't want to waste their early 20's travelling all over the country auditing. Those of Asian descent were the majority. Set for life, ACA qualified.

You've only got to look around a typical mess room to see its not all white male.

 

[ComUtoR]

Kiss goodbye to any diversity also. Every candidate would likely be a white Male , rail enthusiast.

I think this is a genuine concern. This could be overcome with student loans, benefits, appreitiships etc. As a counterpoint though.. Not all BAME are 'poor' My personal background is South London, Single Parent. Paying would certainly be a barrier for me. The other benefit; which we are overlookining is that the job still requires a minimum education entry level. That does allow everyone a chance. I know many Drivers who barely have a GCSE to their name. Sadly, that has now become another barrier to entry

Keeping to the theme of price. How low could it be set ? A couple of K is achievable, even at my lowest I think that if I knew what was possible, I could have scraped a couple of grand together. My first Car cost £1k If I knew that could potentially buy me entry to a £60k job....

 

[HLE]

I think this is a genuine concern. This could be overcome with student loans, benefits, appreitiships etc. As a counterpoint though.. Not all BAME are 'poor' My personal background is South London, Single Parent. Paying would certainly be a barrier for me. The other benefit; which we are overlookining is that the job still requires a minimum education entry level. That does allow everyone a chance. I know many Drivers who barely have a GCSE to their name. Sadly, that has now become another barrier to entry

Keeping to the theme of price. How low could it be set ? A couple of K is achievable, even at my lowest I think that if I knew what was possible, I could have scraped a couple of grand together. My first Car cost £1k If I knew that could potentially buy me entry to a £60k job....

Exactly, on the last sentence. Good luck walking into a 60k a year job in other industries without shelling out more than 1-2k to start with. You'll shell out that for a third of the salary.

 

[Nippy]

Difficult, I was prepared to take an approx £30k pay cut for a year to try and get into the drivers grade. I wouldn't then want to pay as well.

 

[tiptoptaff]

It's a tough one.

Would you have company sponsorship, for example? Internal staff after a minimum service period getting their rules course paid for?

What would I say my training is worth? About 5-10k I think.

A couple of grand for a 60k job is worth it, as evident across many other industries. The railway has always been open to anyone who's good enough. A great leveller,. I don't think any amount is worth that changing.

 

[HLE]

It's a tough one.

Would you have company sponsorship, for example? Internal staff after a minimum service period getting their rules course paid for?

What would I say my training is worth? About 5-10k I think.

A couple of grand for a 60k job is worth it, as evident across many other industries. The railway has always been open to anyone who's good enough. A great leveller,. I don't think any amount is worth that changing.

No, I wouldn't to internals in other grades, upfront anyway, but I would reimburse those who end up staying in the driving grade for several years with my TOC, if I ran it. Cheaper than reminding a DM how much a failed trainee cost.

 

[ComUtoR]

It's a tough one.

Yup.

Would you have company sponsorship, for example? Internal staff after a minimum service period getting their rules course paid for?

Isn't this effectivly what happens now ? The TOC pays for your training but expects a minimal service period. My TOC is 3yrs. Pay to play would mean that you would have have no service period. The TOCs are saving money here. I wouldn't expect this to become the norm or completly replace existing recruitment. Just that this is a potential route for some.

I do hear mention of Sponsers when people apply for PWay jobs. Is that something similar ?

 

[tiptoptaff]

Yup.



Isn't this effectivly what happens now ? The TOC pays for your training but expects a minimal service period. My TOC is 3yrs. Pay to play would mean that you would have have no service period. The TOCs are saving money here. I wouldn't expect this to become the norm or completly replace existing recruitment. Just that this is a potential route for some.

I do hear mention of Sponsers when people apply for PWay jobs. Is that something similar ?

What I meant was, that if an internal applicant, such as a guard, dispatcher, controller etc had worked at the TOC for say 3 years, they'd get their "pay to play" paid for by their employer. Otherwise, how do you encourage movement between the grades

 

[HLE]

What I meant was, that if an internal applicant, such as a guard, dispatcher, controller etc had worked at the TOC for say 3 years, they'd get their "pay to play" paid for by their employer. Otherwise, how do you encourage movement between the grades

The same way as other industries and professional grades. Sign off a minimum length of service, do the modules/exams and then get the job & pay consumerate with that job.

For a guard, it'd be rules 1 & 2 and I'd throw in a simulator assessment just to make sure they are able to deal with what the job will throw at them eventually. They'd then be in a line for the next driver vacancy and be able to recoup the cost of training.

 

[ComUtoR]

What I meant was, that if an internal applicant, such as a guard, dispatcher, controller etc had worked at the TOC for say 3 years, they'd get their "pay to play" paid for by their employer. Otherwise, how do you encourage movement between the grades

As I said, I don't forsee this as a replacement to existing employment practice. Internals or anyone wishing to go via a TOC would still be a viable option. Not all TOCs employ Trainees and not all TOCs employ qualifieds.

This is an oportunity for new applicants to get themselves in a more employable position by going to a TOC pre rules qualified. It's also an oportunity for a TOC to reduce their costs. There is little difference if a TOC hired a qualified Driver or a Qualified Trainee. If anything, it provides additional oportunity for internals to also grab a rules qualification and give them flexibility to move elsewhere.

My TOC takes qualified and Trainees. Neither seem to be a barrier for internals.

*edit*
plenty of our internals have been declined positions for one reason or another. I have always been surprised that internals are not supported more. Maybe this would be a benefit to being internal. Your costs would be covered by the TOC. A genuine path and option for people who get told (on this very forum) that getting an internal job would put you at an advantage.

 

[rail-god]

£0

Train driving is not a job but a way of life and I love it.

 

[Tomnick]

My first instinct was £0, but on reflection I suppose I'd probably still have considered it if I'd been told that I'd have to pay, say, £2k or £3k or so to do the rules course pre-employment, as long as I could do it around my previous employment. Anything more than that, or any full-time commitment required, and I wouldn't have taken the risk - I enjoyed my job before, and it was secure and well paid, so I wouldn't give that up for the unknown but probably small possibility of getting a driving job at the end of it. I think you'd struggle to attract those with relevant experience and the right skills, or at least significantly reduce your pool of potential candidates! Could you really run a rules course on that basis, presumably largely self-study if it's flexible in terms of 'attendance'? What standard of understanding would your average trainee come out of it with? How long would be allowed to elapse before passing the rules course and securing a job and in turn starting practical training? Is it really worth it given that the cost of the rules course isn't that significant compared to the cost of the practical training that follows?

Personally I think the DfT and probably the TOCs would love to go down that road, to get away from the problem of suburban TOCs with rubbish work having a high turnover, taking on trainees who want to move on to better things or closer to home once they've got their key, and the problem (for them) of pay going up and up and up as the "better" TOCs dangle carrots to keep attracting qualified drivers. Is it really good for the grade as a whole though? Looking at how the airline industry has gone - I'd say not :-/

 

[Comfy]

It's a tough one. I'm looking at studying A levels with an online provider. The cost will be around £1000-£1500 per A level.
A degree with open university is £18,000.

I guess I'd look at spending £2 or 3 grand on a train driving course. It's hard to say as I'd want to know what the chances of employment might be after. Getting an A level would open a lot broader range of jobs than training to be a train driver obviously, which to me personally would make A levels a safer choice financially.

I think it really would depend on how employable this training/qualification would make you to determine what people would pay as it is such a specific subject.

 

[HLE]

It's a tough one. I'm looking at studying A levels with an online provider. The cost will be around £1000-£1500 per A level.
A degree with open university is £18,000.

I guess I'd look at spending £2 or 3 grand on a train driving course. It's hard to say as I'd want to know what the chances of employment might be after. Getting an A level would open a lot broader range of jobs than training to be a train driver obviously, which to me personally would make A levels a safer choice financially.

I think it really would depend on how employable this training/qualification would make you to determine what people would pay as it is such a specific subject.

As someone with A levels it definitely gives you an edge in employment, as long as its broadly specific.

Out of interest, which A levels were you looking at?

 

[Comfy]

As someone with A levels it definitely gives you an edge in employment, as long as its broadly specific.

Out of interest, which A levels were you looking at?

Probably a science and law or a science and geography. I've looked at doing more job specific qualifications but it's that worry of paying money to qualify and not finding a job. At least with A levels I can keep my options open.

 

[whoosh]

"Are you a single mum? Or a widower who's kids have grown up and now you can go back to work full time? Because for all that money you've just got lying around - here's an opportunity to get ahead of everyone else (who's also going to be sold this wonderful scheme, so you won't be ahead of anyone). If you've got x-thousand pounds and can afford to not be paid anything for a few months as well and then not be guaranteed a job at the end of it - a career in what was once a workplace with good pay and terms and conditions is waiting for your soon to be precarious financial situation and desperation to come and erode it all just like the airlines."

No thanks. Works absolutely fine as it is. All walks of life can apply currently. That is a very big deal.

Also, people can already take a pay hit when going from their present employment to trainee salary - and this is already uncomfortably precarious for some. Then they do loads of overtime to make up for it and place themselves at greater risk of incidents in their first year or so.
We don't want an even worse situation!

Any schemes like this should be resisted wholeheartedly.

 

[choochoochoo]

Paying for specialised training is a bad thing.

I'll use the example of airline pilots. I have a few friends in the industry so talk to them about this a lot.

They can pay for their training. In fact these days there are very few cadetships (and probably even less now Covid has taken effect), so most do pay for their own training. (possibly excluding the lucky/talented few that get into the military)

Once they've paid for their training they then have to look for a job to recoup the large expense of their training and possibly the years of lost earnings.

This forces some into paying for the experience that airlines are looking for. Even more expense.

The airlines know there's a large number of heavily invested pilots out there and exploit this by offering these new recruits degraded terms and conditions as they know these applicants are desperate to get their foot on the ladder. Hoping to bide their time on poor terms in the hope the better terms are only a few years away (maybe at another company)

This creates divisions in the work force. Old Contract v New Contract.

The company's aim is to eventually get enough new contracts in that they outvote the old contracts on new working conditions, because even though they're worse for the old contracts, they're better for the new contracts.

Eventually leading to worse conditions all round. This spreads across the whole sector. Everyone wants to move to the best company, and guess what, the 'best' company then offer new contracts that may be better than the other place but are worse than the contracts of their more senior colleagues at that company.

It then becomes a race to the bottom

Look at BA right now, they'd love to have fired and rehired the entire lot of pilots because they know that if the old contract employees didn't want to return, then there'd be thousands of relative newbies waiting to take their place. And it's those old contract employees who make the 200K a year for 10 days work a month. So getting rid of them saves the airline a fortune.

In 20 years time the idea of airline pilot being a well paid job will be long gone.

Hopefully train driving doesn't follow the same path.

 

[dctraindriver]

Good question and some good responses too. I wouldn’t like to pay anything to pursue this line of work.

Other sectors have gone this route, it hasn’t worked particularly well, paramedics, police, pilots etc.

I wonder how many who join the trainee driver grade take a pay cut for a substantial amount of time? I know I did.

Who would benefit from drivers paying their way? I’m assuming people who can afford it. Are they the best candidates?

A good open question, food for thought anyhow.

 

[GB]

Not sure why all this talk of other industries. Just because someone somewhere else is dong it doesn't mean we have to chase them.

 

[SlimJim1694]

The standard of candidates would be shocking. Kiss goodbye to any diversity also. Every candidate would likely be a white Male , rail enthusiast.

"Are you a single mum? Or a widower who's kids have grown up and now you can go back to work full time? Because for all that money you've just got lying around - here's an opportunity to get ahead of everyone else (who's also going to be sold this wonderful scheme, so you won't be ahead of anyone). If you've got x-thousand pounds and can afford to not be paid anything for a few months as well and then not be guaranteed a job at the end of it - a career in what was once a workplace with good pay and terms and conditions is waiting for your soon to be precarious financial situation and desperation to come and erode it all just like the airlines."

No thanks. Works absolutely fine as it is. All walks of life can apply currently. That is a very big deal.

Also, people can already take a pay hit when going from their present employment to trainee salary - and this is already uncomfortably precarious for some. Then they do loads of overtime to make up for it and place themselves at greater risk of incidents in their first year or so.
We don't want an even worse situation!

Any schemes like this should be resisted wholeheartedly.

Paying for specialised training is a bad thing.

I'll use the example of airline pilots. I have a few friends in the industry so talk to them about this a lot.

They can pay for their training. In fact these days there are very few cadetships (and probably even less now Covid has taken effect), so most do pay for their own training. (possibly excluding the lucky/talented few that get into the military)

Once they've paid for their training they then have to look for a job to recoup the large expense of their training and possibly the years of lost earnings.

This forces some into paying for the experience that airlines are looking for. Even more expense.

The airlines know there's a large number of heavily invested pilots out there and exploit this by offering these new recruits degraded terms and conditions as they know these applicants are desperate to get their foot on the ladder. Hoping to bide their time on poor terms in the hope the better terms are only a few years away (maybe at another company)

This creates divisions in the work force. Old Contract v New Contract.

The company's aim is to eventually get enough new contracts in that they outvote the old contracts on new working conditions, because even though they're worse for the old contracts, they're better for the new contracts.

Eventually leading to worse conditions all round. This spreads across the whole sector. Everyone wants to move to the best company, and guess what, the 'best' company then offer new contracts that may be better than the other place but are worse than the contracts of their more senior colleagues at that company.

It then becomes a race to the bottom

Look at BA right now, they'd love to have fired and rehired the entire lot of pilots because they know that if the old contract employees didn't want to return, then there'd be thousands of relative newbies waiting to take their place. And it's those old contract employees who make the 200K a year for 10 days work a month. So getting rid of them saves the airline a fortune.

In 20 years time the idea of airline pilot being a well paid job will be long gone.

Hopefully train driving doesn't follow the same path.

Serious sense spoken here.

 

[LCC106]

£0. Just had a quick look and found a degree course for £9,250 per annum. We were told that a university professor did the Driver course and said it was equivalent to a full time degree. No way I’m shelling out that kind of cash for a job on the railway.

You’ve now thrown into the mix the suggestion that people can still apply via TOCs. Why should I pay all that money when others can get the training for free?

As training to be a train driver is a full time job in itself, there’s no way I could hold down a full time job to keep me going at the same time as well as run a household etc. Tried it once, got burn out.

The reality of payback clauses is that it can be difficult to pursue them. Obviously if your contract expressly allows it your final pay could be withheld, going some way to recouping costs, but with recruitment costing an average of 18 months salary a good 10 years ago it barely touches it!

 

[WrongRoad]

The Rules course is only part of the qualification to becoming a Train Driver. There’s PTS, Traction, actual driving with a DI,Final Assessment,Route Learning. The £2-4K price people are saying they would pay is a drop in the ocean of the actual price. TOC’s budget around the £100K per trainee, so to pay for a full licence you are then getting into airline pilot training money.

 

[ComUtoR]

Thank you for your contributions. Some good counterpoints have been made.

Paying to retrain is very real. Whether its an OU degree or specialist retraining plenty of courses exist. I'm very mixed about the 'Single Mum' type of comments. I understand where they are coming from but 'Single Mums' are still pushed back to work and again, not exclusively 'poor' This country runs a welfare system. Those who cannot afford to retrain are given help to return to work. I am also aware (not sure if this will go down well) that the Driving grade leans towards being very middle class.

The reality is also that people are already paying. From How2Become to DBs private assessment and to the new company that also got linked (sorry I don't have the link to hand) All of which are readily supported.

Having a qualification as a pre requisite has now become a reality too. TOCs are offering Apprenticeships and getting a few quid from the Government to do so. A consequence has been a requirement for English and Maths GCSE's

Does the current system work ? I'm not sure. Before I joined this forum I would have said yes. However, what I do see now is that TOCs have a very exclusive club that limits membership. To get in you need to jump many hurdles. By getting rules qualified before applying will shift some of that power back to the applicant. Where I live I am limited in my choice of TOC. I need to live x miles/minutes from the depot and can only apply when the TOC advertises. Don't get me started on the evil that is a 'Talent pool'

The Rules course is only part of the qualification to becoming a Train Driver. There’s PTS, Traction, actual driving with a DI,Final Assessment,Route Learning. The £2-4K price people are saying they would pay is a drop in the ocean of the actual price. TOC’s budget around the £100K per trainee, so to pay for a full licence you are then getting into airline pilot training money.

The rules course is something that can be, and has been, outsourced. So just a rules course not the entire training to pay for.

Also price is a stickler for some but what if that price was not prohibitive ? What if it was a small as £50 ?