Finding and keeping diverse new talent

With a looming ‘retirement bulge’ in the industry, Paul Clifton visits Southern’s Selhurst Depot, and looks at efforts to widen candidate selection. 

The rail industry has long acknowledged that it is one of the least diverse employment sectors.

That’s not perception. It’s fact. Pale, male, and middle-aged.

That brings a looming problem - more than a third of train drivers will be looking to retire over the next decade.

To attract a new generation of talented recruits, the industry must look beyond its more traditional pool of second-career men.

“The story is generally one of positive trends,” says Neil Franklin, a workforce planning adviser at NSAR (the National Skills Academy for Rail), who has compiled driver data for RAIL.

But change is slow. Train drivers remain overwhelmingly male, and overwhelmingly white.

Fewer than one in ten drivers are women - 91.5% are men, 8.5% are women (up from 6% two years ago).

More than nine in ten drivers are white - 90.8%, with 9.2% coming from other ethnicities.

NSAR’s statistics are drawn from its 2023 workforce survey of 17,500 drivers. They include nearly all train operators, with the exception of those under Transport for London (of which more later).

There is a little regional variation. Drivers in London are two years younger than the UK average. Drivers in Scotland are two years older.

“The industry has 40% of the driver workforce aged 50 or over. That’s just under 7,000 drivers,” Franklin explains.

“If the retirement age is 55, then by 2030 we need to replace 50% of our current drivers. That’s 1,250 each year. If the retirement age is 60, then by 2030 we need to replace 33% of our current drivers, which is 840 a year.”

The proportion of ethnic minority groups (EMG) across the working population in the UK is 18.7%.

NSAR points out that if the railway were to reflect that proportion among its drivers, it would need to recruit people from minority backgrounds at a significantly increased rate. If it wants to achieve a 25% target over 20 years, then one in four recruits would have to be from an EMG background.

NSAR has also compiled statistics for drivers under the age of 40. It found the proportion of female drivers is significantly higher for this younger group (14%). The proportion of non-white drivers is also higher (also 14%).

It states: “Many indicators are heading in the right direction, often as a result of government action to improve the deployment of apprenticeships for new train drivers.

“Average age is decreasing. Gender balance is increasing. Drivers under 40 have higher proportions of female and ethnicity than the overall driver population.”

What has created this pattern?

“Two reasons,” says Franklin. “First, the introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy. Second, the requirement through franchise agreements that train operators have 2.5% of their workforce in an apprenticeship scheme at any one time. The development of the train driver apprenticeship standard has been critical to the success.

“It is a one-year, level 3 standard attracting £21,000 of funding support. This is the largest rail-focused apprenticeship. It has generated £19 million a year savings to the sector at current levels, with nearly 1,000 starters a year.

“Fostering diversity isn’t just about ticking boxes. It’s about creating an environment where everyone feels valued, respected and empowered to contribute their best.

“Organisations that prioritise diversity reap the rewards in terms of creativity and overall success. Advantages include better problem solving, higher employee satisfaction, higher levels of innovation, and cultural competence.”

NSAR’s data does not include services run by TfL, which told RAIL that Elizabeth line and Overground trains (run by MTR and Arriva respectively) display greater diversity.

Not surprising, in one of the most diverse cities in the world.

Two in three Elizabeth line drivers are under 45 years old, and one in three are non-white. On London Overground, almost half of all drivers are from non-white backgrounds. But on both operators, nine in ten drivers are male.

Southern Railway apprentice drivers

At Southern Railway’s Selhurst Depot, apprentice driver Donna Pryce coaxes her Class 377 out of a siding, under the supervision of training manager Dom Charlwood.

“I’m definitely one of only a few women,” she says. “I’m not that young - I drove a bus for 12 years. But I do feel like I am in the bottom half of the age range here.”

Donna will be based at Victoria station when she qualifies. She sees the gender balance shifting: “It was my experience growing up, using the railway, that all the drivers were 50-plus white men. But lately I am seeing a lot more diversity. More younger people, black people, women. I love it!”

Dom Charlwood agrees: “When I started as a trainer eight years ago, it was a lot more white male. Now there is a massive mixture of people. The recruitment process is the same, the training is the same. You really have to put the work in, because these are massively sought-after jobs - one of the few places where you can come in with no previous experience and have a job for life.”

Jackie Ellis is part of the same intake as Donna. She will drive from Norwood depot.

“I was working in the darkest depths of a supermarket during COVID,” she says.

“In that job I used a train almost every day. When I saw a female driver, I really noticed, because that was not what I expected to see.

“It is changing. I’m proud to be where I am now. It’s a great step forward, making it a much more inclusive working environment.”

At just 22, George Browning from Portsmouth is Southern’s youngest apprentice driver.

“It’s been a dream goal for me since I was a little boy,” he explains, during a break from learning how to tackle a track circuit failure and be guided past a stubborn red signal. Fortunately, it’s on a simulator in the driver training centre at Selhurst.

“As soon as I turned 21, I applied.”

George joined the railway straight from school, aged 17: “The median age of train drivers is quite high, so I definitely feel like one of the young ones.”

In fact, he’s less than half the average age of a driver. Is that daunting?

“You can be any age,” he replies. “It doesn’t matter. But I am proud to achieve that at a young age.”

George aims to qualify next January or February. Training takes 13 months: “I’ve driven a few trains for real now at Barnham, with my instructor. It’s completely different to the simulator. It actually feels a bit easier, because you’re in charge of the train, and you get the feel of it. I really enjoy it.”

At Govia Thameslink Railway, Zoey Hudson, head of talent, diversity and inclusion, says recruitment methods have changed to enable a wider range of people to apply for jobs.

“It’s really important that we have diversity of thinking within the railway. Diversity of profile, so that we get different people enriching the working environment for the railway of the future.”

How is that going? Most drivers are still middle-aged, and nearly all are white males. Many see it as a job for life, so change is inevitably slow. And some still come from the cherished railway family tradition of sons following their fathers onto the trains.

“It’s about breaking down the stereotype of a male-dominated role,” she says.

“It’s about making people feel this industry is one in which they can belong and thrive.”

Easier said than done. Each time GTR advertises a driver vacancy, it is flooded with applications from very well-qualified, entirely suitable candidates with plenty of relevant experience. An advert for 100 posts during the pandemic attracted 24,000 applicants.

At London Overground, operator Arriva is eliminating CVs from the recruitment process. Instead, it relies solely on psychometric testing run by OPC Assessment, candidate location and age, to assess who progresses to first interview and who is eliminated.

TfL says this will remove unintentional bias, and that a recent trial resulted in a “significant uplift” of females getting through.

It adds that interview questions have been revised to ensure that no prior experience working within a railway setting is required.

Some 53% of the 720 Overground drivers class themselves as white, the lowest percentage of any train operator. On MTR’s Elizabeth line, the figure is 63% of the 474 drivers who declared their ethnicity.

Their drivers are younger, too - more than half of all drivers are in the 35-44 bracket. And there are more drivers in the 25-34 age group than there are over the age of 55. Three in four of the people it recruited already lived in local communities where they now work. It also offers job shares to qualified drivers.

“It’s really important that we recruit through different channels from those in the past,” Zoey Hudson explains.

“We can’t just rely on our website to promote our jobs. We have to go to places where younger people or females are more likely to search. We’ve just run a programme to attract people who’ve been on a long career break. We have to think outside the box to encourage that diversity.”

Does all that effort to find different people make commercial sense, when there is no shortage of enthusiastic candidates wanting to get through the door?

“Having a diversity of employees freshens us as an organisation. It brings a creativity that just employing more of the same people would not bring us. A lot of our drivers will retire in the next ten years. We need to be thinking now about how the railway will be fit for the future. It will look and feel different, and that will make a more successful business.”

Freshening the drivers’ pool

Train drivers could soon be recruited from the age of 18.

The Department for Transport has held a consultation to reduce the minimum age from 20, claiming that “thousands” of opportunities could open up for teenagers “as early as this summer”. It would mean that apprentice drivers could be hired straight from school.

And the proposal has the support of drivers’ union ASLEF.

The DfT stated that the number of young people entering the industry “remains relatively low”.

It said: “Lowering the minimum age for people to start their train driving careers would give more choices to people leaving school or college, as well as encouraging more diversity in the workforce.”

ASLEF General Secretary Mick Whelan told RailReview: “We’ve always argued that lowering the age drivers can begin their training will help the industry. Not only will it increase the number of drivers, but we also believe that those at the pointy end of the train should reflect the communities they serve. That includes having young people in cabs.”

Whelan added: “We firmly believe there should be enough drivers to cover all the available shifts, and do not agree with the reliance on rest day working and overtime.”

Representing train operators, Rail Delivery Group Chief Executive Jaqueline Starr said: “These proposed changes will help us recruit the next generation of drivers, lowering the average age of the workforce, and helping ensure a resilient railway for our customers.”

However, some older train drivers on social media were sceptical whether many 18-year-old applicants would have the life experience to get through the challenging recruitment process, particularly the psychometric tests that are taken before interviewees are selected.

One pointed out: “They’d have to be quite exceptional candidates to stand out against the thousands of others with the required skills to become a train driver. It’s also a risk that they go too early and fail the psychometric testing, which then bars them from future applications.”

All prospective drivers have to pass medical, psychological and competence examinations. That is followed by at least a year of formal training - partly in the classroom and partly under the supervision of a driver trainer.

So, in practical terms, an 18-year-old recruit would be at least 19 before qualifying as a driver.

But a newly qualified 19-year-old could potentially earn a salary well in excess of £40,000 a year.

This article first appeared in RAIL issue 1012, and RailReview issue Q2, 2024.

About the author: Paul Clifton, Contributing Writer. 

Paul has been the BBC’s transport correspondent for southern England for 31 years. He is one of the country’s most experienced transport journalists. He is a Fellow of both the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport and of the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation.