HAULAGE IS A GOOD CAREER PATH BECAUSE IT WILL NEVER NOT BE NEEDED.
THE APPRENTICES
THE ROAD TO A GREAT CAREER
YOU’ VE PROBABLY SEEN RED DEVEREUX TRUCKS ALL ACROSS THE COUNTRY – BUT DID YOU KNOW THEY’ RE FROM TEESSIDE?
For 78 years, proud family firm Devereux Transport and Distribution has taken goods around the UK – and the world!
Based on Billingham’ s Cowpen Lane Industrial Estate, it currently operates 95 lorries – 64 full 44-ton articulated units, 21 rigid vehicles weighing up to 28 tons and 10 vans.
About 90 % are maintained and serviced by the in-house workshop, along with a fleet of around 160 trailers.
Most of Devereux’ s 161 employees are drivers – around 120 of them.
They’ re often( but not always) away from home, sometimes sleeping in their cabs, so a love for driving and being happy with your own company is useful!
But there are other roles too, including 23 in the admin office and 13 in the maintenance workshop, so there’ s a variety of jobs in the haulage sector.
Devereux health, safety and compliance officer Daniel Carr told Tees Skills:“ Haulage is a good career path because it will never not be needed.
Opportunity – with so much demand for road haulage, it can be a job for life, says Devereux’ s Daniel Carr.
HAULAGE IS A GOOD CAREER PATH BECAUSE IT WILL NEVER NOT BE NEEDED.
“ So many things in your life – food, the clothes you wear, the furniture in your house – at some point have more than likely been moved on a truck.
“ With so much stuff being moved around, if you get into something like haulage, you can have a job for life. The pay’ s decent too, whatever part of the business you’ re in.
“ So, there’ s a host of roles within the industry – and a lot of the skills are transferable.”
THE APPRENTICES
Jack Welford and Marley Gettings are apprentice fitters with Devereux, so they get paid while learning their trade.
Both spend one day a week at Hartlepool College of Further Education and the rest in the maintenance workshop.
And while they’ re happy in the workshop, they may want to get out on the road as drivers in years to come.
Marley, 16, of Loftus has just started his Level 1 apprenticeship and is enjoying it –“ I always wanted to do something mechanical,” he said.
And Jack, 18, of Billingham, is already onto his Level 2, because he’ d previously helped out in the yard and workshop.
Jack said:“ I first went to college to do electrical because that was the highest-paid trade I knew of, but I prefer doing this. It’ s much better being in a job you want to do.”
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