Firms desperate to lure staff amid a UK labour shortage are offering salaries that are more than double the national average for similar roles.
Lorry drivers can pick-up £78,000-per-year - almost as much as the average barrister and more than double the £32,500 average for HGV drivers in the UK - under job vacancies being listed online.
Firms desperate for fruit and vegetable pickers are also upping their pay offers, with bumper £30-per-hour salaries.
It means for those working 40 hour weeks can earn up to £62,000 - way above the £26,000 average for fruit and vegetable pickers.
A £62,000-a-year pay packet would put fruit pickers on par with dentists in terms of average annual salaries.
Meanwhile, one courier firm is offering delivery jobs for salaries of up to £52,000-a-year - more than the average London based officer salary of £42,500-a-year.
Milkmen can also earn themselves a bumper salary, with one employment advert offering up to £45,000-a-year for a milk delivery driver.
It comes as it was today revealed that there are nearly two million job adverts currently active in the UK.
Meanwhile, the Government is attempting to convince more people to take up lorry driving in order to combat the UK's current HGV driver crisis.
Estimates by the Road Haulage Association (RSA) suggest the UK is in need of 100,000 HGV drivers.
Lorry drivers can pick-up £78,000-per-year - more than double the £32,500 average for HGV drivers - under job vacancies being listed online. Library image
Firms desperate for fruit and vegetable pickers are also upping their salary offers, with £30-per-hour salaries. Library image
Milkmen can also earn themselves a bumper salary, with one employment advert offering up to £45,000-a-year for a milk delivery driver. Library image
Meanwhile, one courier firm, Yodel (pictured) is offering delivery jobs for salaries of up to £52,000-a-year - more than the average London based officer salary of £42,500-a-year
It comes amid fears of empty shelves and even emptier petrol tanks, with the crisis causing delays to deliveries.
Meanwhile Ministers faced fresh pressure to ease immigration rules as an emergency measure to attract HGV drivers from overseas.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps today hinted at the possibility, saying he would move 'heaven and earth' to tackle the 'systemic issue' of HGV driver shortages.
He also claimed transport firms were offering huge salaries in a bid to entice drivers who have left the industry to come back - with one 'top milk firm' apparently offering as much as '£78,000-a-year'.
Job adverts on Total Jobs show one HGV role offering up to £70,000 per annum. The job, based in Slough, is listed as 'urgent'.
H Clements and Son Ltd, based in Boston, Lincs posted one job advert calling for broccoli pickers - who they say can earn up to £30-per-hour.
This works out at £240-per-day or £1,200-per-week. The monthly pay for doing it full-time is £4,800 and an annual salary of £62,400-a-year - based on an average working week.
The job advert reads: 'We are looking for Field Operatives to harvest our broccoli. Excellent piecework with potential to earn up to £30-per-hour. All year round work available.'
An average salary for a fruit and vegetable pick, according to job site Indeed, is in the region of £26,000.
Meanwhile, delivery firm Yodel is looking for van drivers in south east and east London, and is offering up to £52,000-a-year.
According to job site Glassdoor, the average salary for a Yodel driver is £30,859.
Other ways to grab a plus £40,000-a-year salary is as a milkman in Loughborough.
According to Indeed, the job, working with Gmi Distribution, pays between £26,000 to £45,000-a-year and is available part and full-time. Milkmen typically earn an around £28,000.
UK job advert numbers have reached the highest figure in at least a year, with almost two million positions currently being offered, newly released figures have revealed.
Job market data from September 13 to September 19 shows more than 220,000 new job adverts were posted, bringing the total number of active job adverts to 1.9million.
According to the figures, there were 36,000 new adverts appeared for chefs, around 32,000 for sales assistants and 6,500 for bar staff in that period.
The figures for hospitality jobs are likely to reflect the country opening back up in the wake of Covid-19 rules being lifted.
But the job advert figures also show more than 7,500 job adverts have been posted for HGV drivers in the UK in the last week. Some offer salaries upward of £50,000-a-year.
The flurry of job adverts comes amid a shortage of lorry drivers across the UK.
The Road Haulage Association estimate the UK to be short of 100,000 HGV drivers.
Brexit and Covid are among the major reasons put forward by transport groups and ministers for the shortage, which has sparked chaos for the UK's transport industry.
It comes as panic buying set in today at fuel stations up and down the UK after BP yesterday announced it the HGV driver shortage meant fuel was not getting to some of its pumps.
Meanwhile, Government officials are said to be growing increasingly concerned about the possibility of a 'winter of discontent' this year, with supermarkets warning of food shortages and more energy firms went bust amid rising gas prices.
The Bank of England on Thursday warned the spiralling costs could see inflation rise by 4 per cent this year - the highest rate of growth for a decade.
Ministers are today being urged to consider relaxing immigration rules to tackle the jobs crisis, while Transport Secretary Grant Shapps urged people not to panic buy fuel, saying: 'carry on as normal'.
Job market data from September 13 to September 19 shows firms in the UK need, in total, more than 36,000 chefs, around 32,000 sales assistants and 6,500 bar staff
UK job advert numbers have reached the highest figure in at least a year, with almost two million positions currently being offered, newly released figures have revealed. Pictured: A graph showing the number of job adverts being offered in the UK
A breakdown of the figures by each area, with the most number of active job postings currently in the south east
A breakdown of the figures by different job types, including cleaners, care workers and chefs
According to the figures, from the 13-19 September, there were 1.9 million active job adverts currently active in the UK.
The figures are from the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC)’s latest Job Recovery Tracker - which tracks the number of job adverts and there different sectors they are in.
The 1.9million figure is a new record high for the tracker, which started collecting data in January 2020.
According to the tracker, there were 223,000 new job adverts posted in the week of 13-19 September.
The biggest surge in new jobs was in the care sector, where more than 55,000 new job adverts were posted during that period.
There were also more than 30,000 adverts for chefs, sales assistants and primary school teachers.
More than 28,000 new job adverts also appeared for cleaners and 22,000 for metal workers.
Neil Carberry, Chief Executive of the REC, said the figures were 'good news'. But he warned that a shortage in labour could slow the UK's recovery from Covid.
He said: 'Job postings are rising in every area of the UK. That’s good news, and we are seeing more employees starting new positions than ever – but demand from employers is even higher still.
'There is a real chance now that shortages of available workers will slow the recovery.
'A recent REC survey of recruiters found that three in five have over 30% more vacancies than usual, and 97% said it’s taking longer to fill them.
'Labour shortages and the related recruitment difficulties put constraints on the economy, restricting output growth and innovation, so it’s vital we solve them quickly.'
Mr Carberry urged Government departments and industry experts to come together to solve the shortage.
It comes as employment expert today claimed more than 500,000 over-50s have withdrawn from the UK labour market since the start of the Covid pandemic.
The sudden withdrawal of hundreds of thousands of staff, plus a drop in the number of migrant workers and an increase in the number of students has led to record numbers of job vaccancies, according to Tony Wilson, director of the Institute for Employment Studies.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme: 'It's right (that there are fewer workers around). The labour market is much smaller than it was before the pandemic began.
'We estimate that there is about a million fewer people in the labour market now than there were before the crisis began and probably about a quarter of that is explained by lower migration and that's mainly lower immigration since the pandemic rather than higher emigration.
'About 500,000 of that is explained by more people over 50 who have withdrawn from the labour market. That's compared with what we would have expected to happen, because over 50s employment and labour market participation has been growing for decades, but that growth has now reversed.
'So it's about half a million is explained by over 50s, while 300,000 is explained by young people in full time education – so more young people more in education.
'And there is a little bit which is furlough, which is ending next week, but it looks like that may only be between 200,000-300,000 workers, so it could be around one million workers.'
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps suggested adding HGV drivers to the skilled worker list for immigration purposes would not solve the problem, although he insisted he nothing had been ruled out
Agricutlure Secretary George Eustice has indicated that the government is preparing to extend the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS) this year to help tackle the UK's HGV crisis
Asked what the sudden spike in over-50s dropping from the labour market, he said: 'It's a combination of factors. A lot will be the pandemic. It will be people who will have been furloughed, who have taken time away from the labour market and simply aren't returning.
'Some of it will be people who feel they can't go back to work, they may have been shielding for example and may come back in the future.'
The comments came as panic buying at the pumps began today amid fears fuel rationing is on the way due to the UK's crippling HGV driver shortage - as Transport Secretary Grant Shapps tried to calm nerves by urging Britons 'carry on as normal'.
Queues of cars were seen spilling out on to the road from forecourts in Tonbridge, Kent, in Ely, Cambridgeshire, Bright and Leeds this morning - just a day after fuel bosses warned of petrol and diesel rationing and petrol station closures.
One petrol station in Essex, was already said to have run out of diesel by this morning, while outside another forecourt on the A12, also
