Driver or transport manager

You’ll provide transport for people who need care and support, for example to and from a day centre or to hospital appointments.

Role overview

Your role might include:

• transporting people to and from day centres, hospital appointments and outings
• planning routes that include different pickups and drop offs
• supporting people to get on and off the vehicle
• performing basis vehicle checks and ensuring the vehicle is clean. 

Skills and experience

To work in this role, you'll need to be reliable and trustworthy with good organisation and communication skills and the ability to cope under pressure or in an emergency. It will also be helpful to have knowledge of the local area and of the issues faced by people who draw on care and support.

You’ll need a full driving license and possibly a category D licence depending on the vehicle you’re driving. You’ll need to be 17 years old to drive smaller minibuses and cars and at least 21 to have a category D licence to drive vehicles with more than 9 seats.

It might be useful to have previous experience in a similar role, or in a social care and health setting.

Opportunities

You employer will arrange an induction which includes training necessary for your role such as health and safety and moving and handling training. You might also receive specific social care training such as autism awareness, communication skills or working with people with dementia.

You could do additional training whilst working such as an advanced driver qualification or bus, coach and minibus PCV driver training courses. There are also BTEC driver training qualifications to help you progress into more senior roles. Your employer might pay for you to do these qualifications, or you could apply for an Advanced Learner Loan to pay for them yourself.

There may be opportunities to progress into more senior driver roles or you might choose to go into other social care roles. 

Find out more about other roles.