Driver pay structures in haulage are some of the most creative in any industry: hourly rates, mileage rates, day rates, night out allowances, trunking supplements and bonuses. Every one of them must still clear the National Minimum Wage bar, and HMRC enforces it with compliance officers as well as through workers’ own tribunal claims.
From April 2026 the minimum hourly rates are:
Compliance is measured over each pay reference period (usually the month or week someone is paid for), averaging pay against the hours that count. A driver can be well above the rate on paper and still be underpaid once every working hour is counted properly.
The government’s calculating-the-minimum-wage guidance is where haulage pay schemes live or die. For time workers, the hours that count include:
The guidance’s own example is telling: a worker called in for an urgent order who sits waiting because a delivery is delayed must still be paid at least minimum wage for the waiting time, because they are at the workplace and required to be available.
Now translate that into haulage. The driver waiting three hours at a RDC bay, instructed to stay with the vehicle, is at work for minimum wage purposes whether or not the wheels turn. A pay scheme built purely on mileage or drops has to survive that arithmetic across every pay reference period, not just the good weeks.
Mileage and job rates. Lawful, but only if the total divided by all counting hours clears the rate. Slow weeks, breakdowns and long loading delays all push the denominator up while the pay stays flat.
Night out allowances. A properly structured overnight subsistence allowance is a tax-free reimbursement of expenses, not pay. It does not count toward minimum wage pay, so an operator cannot use night out money to top a weak hourly rate over the bar.
Sleep-in time in the cab. Where a driver is required to be available for work at or near the vehicle, that time can count; where they are permitted to sleep and suitable sleeping facilities are provided, the sleep-in exception can apply. The analysis is fact-specific, and the wrong call across a fleet of night drivers compounds fast.
Breaks. Rest breaks count as working time only if the contract provides for it. Most drivers’ 45-minute breaks will not count, which cuts both ways: they do not need paying for the break, but they cannot be used to dilute the hours either.
Deductions and charges. Costs workers are made to bear in connection with their employment can reduce pay for minimum wage purposes. The government’s employer checklist of common underpayment causes is worth an annual read for exactly this reason.
The guidance is explicit that the minimum wage is enforced by HMRC compliance officers, or by a worker claiming in an employment tribunal or court. HMRC can investigate on a worker’s complaint or on its own initiative, and underpayment means arrears. In a sector where recruitment is hard, a finding that you underpaid drivers is a reputational wound that outlasts any repayment.
Minimum wage law was not written for cab-based work, but it applies to it without apology. The operators who get it right are the ones who count hours the way the guidance does, not the way the tariff sheet does.