For decades, we have lived in a world with certain assumptions about HGV drivers. The notion was that it would always be a man, probably there with his Yorkie bar (the one once marketed as ‘not for girls’ – less sexist chocolate is available) on the dashboard. At the same time, sexist jokes about female drivers have abounded.
In such a climate, it may be small wonder that very few HGV drivers are female. After all, if women are supposed to be bad at parking cars, how can they park a large lorry?
However, a few have taken on the stereotype – and if many more do so by taking HGV courses in Scotland, that could go a long way towards helping reduce driver shortages.
The Daily Mirror recently reported on one woman who has set out to shatter the myth. Holly Upton, from Macclesfield in Cheshire, is one of the trailblazers. After working as a security officer during the pandemic, she decided to turn her love of driving into a career and took her class 2 HGV training.
At the age of 27, she is also unusual in being a young driver as well as a female. However, as she told the paper, this does bring challenges. Part of this was the common struggle of young people to get a job without experience. But, she added: “As a female it’s even harder, because it’s like you’ve got to prove you can do it, too – if not better.”
She noted that only 1.2 per cent of truckers are female, but also observed that social media is helping to make the profession more appealing to females and younger people in general. This could make the next generation of drivers demographically very different from the current one.
Across the UK economy, the employment rate for women rose from 65.5 per cent in 2010 to 72.3 per cent in 2022. If more women are working overall, why not do so in fields traditionally associated with men, such as HGV driving?