UK Diesel Hits Record 199.33p a Litre, Squeezing Lorry Training Firms

UK diesel hit an all-time high of 199.33p a litre this week, and the Shropshire lorry training firm Dulson Training says it now costs hundreds of pounds more to fill up each vehicle than it did at 2025 prices.

The RAC motoring organisation confirmed the record figure. Petrol has climbed in parallel, reaching 174.23p a litre.

The trigger is the war in the Middle East. The conflict, which started on 28 February, has added 59p to the average cost of a litre of diesel — just under 40% — and 41p to the price of petrol. International diesel supplies have been heavily constrained by the fighting.

The reversal is stark. Fuel prices had been largely falling since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, according to the source. That downward trend ended in February.

A business trapped by its own pipeline

Steve Dulson, managing director of Dulson Training, said the family-run business is being forced to absorb the increase rather than pass it on. The reason lies in how commercial driver training is sold.

"Over the last 12 months we've seen a rise of up to 50p a litre, excluding VAT, and it's hard to react to that, because of how we deal with our customers," he said.

His customers commit months before they ever sit behind the wheel of a training lorry or bus. They take medicals, apply for provisional licences and sit theory tests first. By the time they reach practical training, the price is already fixed.

"Our customers have usually been in our pipeline for some time, taking medicals, applying for provisional [licences] or taking theory tests, so by the time they've got to their practical training, and the fuel prices have increase, they've already been quoted," Dulson said. "That makes it difficult for us to put prices up."

The result is a margin squeeze measured in months, not weeks. Fuel costs move weekly; quoted training fees do not.

Limited room to cut costs

Dulson said the company has found only marginal savings on the operational side. Instructors can extend breaks during training sessions. They can take routes that use less fuel. Neither measure offsets a near-40% jump in the core input of a driving school.

"The customer has paid us to do a job and we're going to do that to the best of our ability," he said.

The firm is, in his word, "riding out" the spike. That strategy has a shelf life. Dulson was explicit about what happens if diesel prices stay near record levels.

"As next year comes round, we might have to increase prices to reflect what we're going through, unless there's a downturn," he said.

Why one firm's problem signals a wider one

Dulson Training teaches people to drive lorries and buses. Both vehicle classes run on diesel. A training operator with no ability to reprice locked-in customers offers a clean case study of how fuel shocks move through the UK logistics skills pipeline — the sector that trains the drivers haulage firms depend on.

The arithmetic is unforgiving. A 50p-a-litre increase, excluding VAT, on a training fleet's consumption translates into hundreds of pounds extra per lorry fill-up, by Dulson's account. Training companies operate on quoted, pre-sold packages. Every week of high diesel prices erodes the margin on courses already booked.

The sector's exposure also runs deeper than pump prices. The Middle East conflict has constrained international diesel supply, according to the source. That means no rapid relief is built into current market conditions. Unless prices fall, training firms face a choice between absorbing the cost or repricing for future cohorts — and Dulson Training has signalled it will choose repricing next year.

For now, the firm keeps its commitments. The price rises land on the balance sheet, not on the customer's invoice.