7.5 Tonne Driver Agency in Eastleigh
7.5 tonne drivers on Category C1, for multi-drop, home delivery and event logistics, supplied to operators in Eastleigh and the South East as temporary cover.
Why Eastleigh employers use an agency
Eastleigh is close enough to London to lose staff to it and far enough out to run its own regional distribution, which makes short-notice cover a standing feature of the local market rather than a seasonal one.
The freight geography around Eastleigh runs on the M25, M3, M4, M20, M23 and M2, Gatwick Airport, the Channel ferry terminal at Dover, the shuttle terminal at Folkestone, DP World Southampton and the inland border facility at Sevington. Operators draw on the M3 and A34 corridor through Basingstoke, Winchester and Andover and the employers booking temporary staff here are typically chilled produce importers and packers moving fruit, salad and flowers on tight shelf-life.
Aerospace and manufacturing supply chains around the Solent and the Thames Valley run to build schedules, so line-feed and goods-in cover is wanted for the length of a programme and no longer.
Cover for Eastleigh is arranged nationally, which is what lets us match the worker to the seat rather than to the postcode. Every driver and warehouse operative is vetted against your booking before confirmation, then travels in for the shift.
The seats we cover
The 7.5 tonne group is split by a licence quirk. Drivers who passed before 1997 hold C1 by grandfather rights and driving one professionally still needs the Driver CPC. Checking the entitlement properly, rather than reading a weight off the booking, is what separates a legal shift from an unlawful one.
Driver CPC is a separate qualification from the licence and the exemptions around it are narrow. None of them cover a delivery round. Somebody can hold C1 by grandfather rights, be entirely capable at the wheel and still be unlawful driving it professionally and the operator carries that exposure as much as the driver does. So the card gets checked against the actual work, every time.
When the work runs
Nights on trunk work between the south-coast ports and the Midlands parks, out and back inside a shift.
Day shifts dominate, with early loading and a fixed drop list. Home delivery and event work push into evenings and weekends, especially through peak.
Event and exhibition work is a marshalled operation on somebody else's timetable. Access is slotted, the build has an order, the vehicle waits and the driver is effectively on site for the duration. Somebody expecting a drop list and a run home will be poor company on day two of a build, so the shift is described honestly when it is booked.
Compliance and vetting
One weekly invoice, not a pile of dockets — None of this is a formality. A worker who fails any of these does not get offered the shift and occasionally that means we hand a booking back rather than fill it badly.
- Category C1 entitlement confirmed on the licence — including grandfather rights and whether Driver CPC is required for the work.
- DVLA share code checked and re-checked every 90 days.
- Driver Qualification Card in date where CPC applies.
- Right to work verified from original documents.
How pay works
Peak changes the shape of the week rather than the rate. Extra evening and weekend slots are agreed as a standing pattern with the uplift already attached, so a driver knows in October what December looks like. The twelve-week parity clock runs from the first shift and is reported as it goes, rather than reconstructed later.
Equal treatment on pay and basic conditions applies after 12 weeks in the same role under the Agency Workers Regulations 2010. We hold the count per worker per role and raise it with you before the threshold rather than on the invoice that follows it.
Live shifts
This board only ever shows real bookings. When it is empty, there is nothing live for this seat today. Leave your details and your licence categories and we will be in touch when there is.
Common questions
How quickly can you cover a 7.5 tonne shift in Eastleigh?
Next day is what we work to as standard. Same day happens when a suitable worker is free and the site is reachable and we will say which of those two you are getting rather than leaving you to find out at the gate.
What do you check before a 7.5 tonne starts work in Eastleigh?
Category C1 entitlement confirmed on the licence — including grandfather rights and whether Driver CPC is required for the work. DVLA share code checked and re-checked every 90 days. Driver Qualification Card in date where CPC applies. Right to work verified from original documents. Each is verified against an original or a live source rather than a photocopy and the licence check repeats every 90 days for as long as the worker is available to us.
How does invoicing work for temporary staff in Eastleigh?
One weekly invoice covering every approved shift, with the assignment reference on each line. The provenance matters more than the format: you should be able to trace any figure back to a specific person on a specific day.
Explore more
Other cover we supply in Eastleigh
7.5 Tonne cover elsewhere in South East
Tell us who you need
Give us the class, the count, the dates and the shift. We confirm what we can cover and say plainly when we cannot.