Britain’s railways are lowering the driver age to 18 — the staffing crisis behind the move

Five words in a headline can make a policy sound reckless: “18-year-olds allowed to drive trains.” The reality is narrower, more bureaucratic, and far more revealing about the state of Britain’s railway workforce. The government has said it will lower the legal minimum age to be a train driver from 20 to 18 in Great Britain from 30 June 2026. In practical terms, that means that from 30 June 2026, 18-year-olds can apply for train driver roles, provided they meet the same licensing, training and competence requirements that apply to everyone else entering the profession.

The most important driver of the change is not ideology, but arithmetic. The government has stated that by 2030 a quarter of all train drivers are expected to reach retirement age. It also says the pressure is unevenly spread, rising to 32% in Scotland and the North East, and 38% in Wales. Those figures matter because train driving is a safety-critical role with a lengthy training pathway, and because staff shortages don’t merely inconvenience passengers — they show up as late-notice cancellations, thinner timetables, and a network that struggles to recover when disruption hits.

The second rationale is access to the talent pool. The government is explicit that the workforce is not representative: fewer than 4% of train drivers are under 30, only 11% are women, and less than 13% are from a minority ethnic background. Lowering the entry age is presented as a way to reach people when they are making post-school decisions, rather than trying to recruit them after they have already committed to other sectors. It is also framed as an attempt to “level the playing field” across transport careers, with government pointing to other roles young people can do from 18.

The safety question sits beneath every paragraph of the policy debate, and the evidence being cited has to be described carefully. RSSB published research findings in September 2024 stating that, for younger entrants, existing training, competence and safety systems could be used, and that no new cost or special allowances would need to be introduced to accommodate 18-year-old trainees within those systems. That does not mean “any 18-year-old can drive tomorrow”; it means the established framework of selection, training, monitoring and competence management is considered capable of incorporating younger recruits without rewriting the rulebook that keeps the network safe.

To understand why government believes it can move now, you have to follow the paper trail. The Department for Transport launched a public consultation on 16 May 2024, which ran until 13 June 2024. In its published outcome (dated 7 May 2025), the department set out the legal and regulatory background: train driving requirements on the mainline are governed by the Train Driving Licences and Certificates Regulations 2010, with the Office of Rail and Road responsible for issuing licences and train operators responsible for certification. The same outcome also makes clear the boundaries of the system it is talking about — the mainline regime does not apply to heritage railways, metros, tramways and other light rail systems.

So why is this change happening now, and exactly when does it bite? The government’s 10 February 2026 announcement describes that day as the next step in changing the law and says legislation will be laid in Parliament during National Apprenticeship Week. The operational date it has set is 30 June 2026, when the legal minimum age changes and 18-year-olds can apply for train driver roles. In other words, this is a workforce policy as much as a youth opportunity policy: a deliberate widening of the recruitment funnel ahead of an expected retirement bulge — with the real test not being the first successful 18-year-old applicant, but whether the industry can scale training and supervision consistently across operators while keeping standards exactly where they must remain.