Nah, that reflects on the U.K. - developers are generally miserably underpaid, and there’s a massive shortage of freight drivers since Brexit for no apparent reason whatsoever.
And of course if you’re good at running yourself as a business you have the skills to run other drivers too if you choose to invest in a fleet.
Heck, for a while Amazon was paying people to quit and start trucking.
The main reason is that most drivers were Eastern European and since freedom of movement ended it has become significantly harder for them to come and work as freely as they could before. Covid is also a factor afaik.
Though I otherwise agree with you that developers (or rather white collar careers in general with the exception of certain finance roles) are not particularly well paid in many instances in the UK.
From my experience that's in line with people doing "body rentals" for agencies under threat of being deported or because they couldn't find another job.
I think he could have doubled that with a bit of work on resume / negotiation skills.
Sure, still lower than US but life in the UK is way cheaper, so it works out unless your earning potential is mid-high 3 digits.
This salary sadly seems normal for a non-tech business.
> life in the UK is way cheaper
Nowadays I'm not sure, especially if you actually need any of the services the government is supposed to provide but is no longer able to (healthcare, etc). Private healthcare expenses quickly adds up.