To tackle the bus driver shortage, wages are going up and the age of entry is coming down. But is that enough, asks Roger Brereton of bus and coach steering system manufacturer, Pailton Engineering. Here, he considers the state of the bus driver shortage going into 2026.
As of October 2025, the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) says there is a shortfall of more than 4,000 bus and coach drivers. In November 2025, the EU announced it would be reducing the minimum age of bus and HGV drivers to help cope with staff shortages.
The new Directive (EU) 2025/2205 reduces the minimum age for holding a category D/DE licence from 24 to 21, or in some cases 18, if the driver holds a Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC) under Directive 2022/2561. Member States have until late 2028 to change their laws to meet the Directive and must apply them from late 2029.
Change on the way?
European operators have been told that the EU will allow younger bus drivers, but whether and when they can actually hire them is down to their national government, and realistically that’s a years-long horizon, not months. Even then, the lower ages in the Directive are mostly optional, so each country can still decide not to go as low as the EU would allow.
None of this forces any change in the UK either, which can copy the idea or ignore it completely. For UK operators, the only thing that matters is what the Department for Transport (DfT) decides to do with domestic legislation.
So far, the DfT has already consulted on letting 18- to 20-year-olds drive longer routes and streamlining training so people can get behind the wheel faster. In May 2025, the Government announced that the minimum age for train drivers was being lowered to 18 to help with driver shortages, so a change for bus drivers could well follow.
The safety question
The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) is not pleased with the plans. It says that allowing younger people to drive will increase the risk of road accidents.
The ETSC cites data from Germany, Finland and Poland that show that truck and bus drivers aged 18–24 are involved in far more collisions leading to injury or fatalities per 10,000 licences than older drivers.
The ETSC links this higher risk to a combination of incomplete brain development, especially with impulse control and risk assessment, and inexperience behind the wheel.
In the meantime, wages have gone up by more than the national average, which seems to have helped buses, with vacancies at 3.4 per cent in October 2025 compared to 5.3 per cent in July 2024. On the other hand, the driver shortage has worsened for the coach sector, with vacancies increasing from 9.5 to 12.4 per cent in the same period.
In addition, these higher wages have come at a cost to operators. Compared to 2023, per-mile operating costs have increased by 17 per cent. If the trend continues, low-margin services could be at risk.
More than wages
The ETSC argues that lowering the driving age adds risk on the road and doesn’t fix why people are leaving. Transport for London (TfL) says that mental health and musculoskeletal (MSK) issues are the top two reasons people go on long-term sick leave. Its 2024/25 Quarterly Safety, Health and Security report showed the two issues caused around 43,000 sick days in one quarter.
Both TfL and the ETSC suggest that improving the job role is key to solving the crisis. A TfL report into the bus cabin of the future suggests that operators can tackle MSK issues by investing in ergonomic driver environments with adjustable seats, steering columns and controls. There is some talk behind the scenes of mandating more adjustable steering columns, but no concrete moves in this direction for now.
The engineering and technology are available to solve this problem. Visitors to Busworld 2025 saw how Pailton Engineering was addressing the issue with its driver pod, a fully adjustable driver workstation that enables a comfortable sitting position irrespective of height or body type.
If policymakers and operators want a lasting solution to the driver shortage, the answer is not just younger recruits and higher wages, but a safer, more sustainable driving environment that keeps experienced professionals in the cab for the long term.
