A shortage of skilled personnel is one of the enduring challenges facing Europe’s railways, and the lack of drivers is especially acute. With EU policy leading to a more fluid competitive passenger rail landscape and rapid mobilisation needs for new entrants, the pressure to find more drivers is becoming intense. Toma Bačić sets out the problem and how it is being tackled.
The Brussels-based trade association CER has warned that around 30% to 40% of Europe’s railway workforce could retire by 2035. It says that locomotive drivers are one of the most difficult professions to replace, and their shortages are becoming a limiting factor for expanding passenger and freight services across the continent.
Nowhere is that more apparent than in the DACH region, where figures from the relevant railway regulatory and licensing bodies indicate that around 570 railway undertakings have the right to operate trains (passenger or freight) across some or all of the German, Austrian and Swiss networks.
In Germany, the EU Agency for Railways says 34 200 train drivers were employed by railway undertakings in 2022. This compares with 63 317 valid EU train driver licences, illustrating why licence numbers alone should not be used as a proxy for the workforce figure. The European Commission’s 2025 Rail Market Monitoring report for Austria estimated that there were 3 000 train drivers there in 2022, while in Switzerland, SBB alone (including SBB Cargo) employed 4 950 drivers in 2022, rising to 5 267 in 2024.
High demand fuels shortages
In its 2025 railway market analysis, the German federal networks agency Bundesnetzagentur reported that operating companies were finding the personnel recruitment situation strained across the sector, identifying ‘extremely scarce train driver resources’ and lengthy, expensive training requirements as major problems.
Operators reported that job advertisements generated little response and that applicants were often insufficiently qualified. Shift patterns and the need for night duties and weekend work have reduced the attractiveness of the profession.
However, while railway operators may complain about short staffing, official statistics have suggested that Germany has increased its train driver workforce substantially: the European Commission says the number rose by about 4 000 between 2018 and 2022, reaching 34 200. In other words, the shortage isn’t simply a matter of the workforce shrinking; demand for drivers is also growing.
In Austria, train drivers have been formally classified as a ‘shortage occupation’ for 2026. They are included in the federal government’s list of occupations where critical gaps can be found in the workforce, alongside roles such as nursing and certain categories of engineer.
In Switzerland, SBB had 4 950 locomotive drivers in 2022 and 5 267 in 2024, an increase of 317, or 6.4%. Nevertheless, SBB is continuing to recruit and train drivers in 2026, including underwriting paid 15-month career-change training programmes.
Pay and language skills
The DACH region accounts for more than 40 000 active train drivers, yet all three countries are experiencing recruitment pressure despite having relatively high wages for railway staff compared with much of Europe.
While direct comparisons are difficult because of complex pay scales, benefits in kind and local terms and conditions, typical annual salaries vary substantially between the three countries. A driver could expect to earn around €94 000 to €112 000 in Switzerland, €48 000 to €51 000 in Austria and €46 000 to €48 000 in Germany. The three countries also impose language requirements on drivers. In most cases this is the B1 local language competency, as this is aligned with the EU train driver qualification framework.
In Germany, the TfV train driver licensing regulation explicitly requires sufficient German to enable active, purposeful communication during normal operations, disruptions and emergencies. EU rules also have specific language requirements for border stations. The basic principle is that the driver should know the operating language of the infrastructure manager’s network on which they operate. Under the EU Train Drivers Directive, this is normally CEFR B1, with the driver required to communicate effectively in routine, degraded and emergency situations.
Finding the right people
Formed in Mannheim in 1999, MEV has emerged over recent years as one of the principal players in the management of short-term traincrew provision. Now part of Swiss holding company TEX Rail, MEV is active in driver hiring in all three DACH countries as well as in Belgium and the Netherlands, although the structure of its business varies somewhat by territory.
In Germany, MEV Eisenbahn-Verkehrsgesellschaft has an operating licence itself, enabling it to provide qualified locomotive drivers to other railway undertakings as leased personnel. Its focus is on providing flexibility to RUs, including Leih-Tf (leased train drivers) for passenger operators, and it says that under current employment law, a driver can remain assigned to one train operator for up to five years.
MEV Österreich offers what it terms ‘temporary employment’ of operational railway personnel, including train drivers. It says drivers are available at short notice for the Austrian network, either for individual shifts or for longer-term placements.
In Switzerland, MEV Schweiz has operations in Basel and Bellinzona and offers railway operational and personnel services. Its Swiss operation can also support operators with cross-border roster and duty-planning tasks.
Flexible business model
‘Our business model is to help our railway clients to be successful in their business’, says Thorsten Dieter, Chief Executive of MEV Eisenbahn-Verkehrsgesellschaft. ‘We provide flexible and well-trained drivers to close the gap our clients have in their own workforce. We are glad that the demand is by nature volatile, but growing constantly. To retain our employees, we do a lot: cultural work, qualification, reflecting personal needs in shift plans, health support and, of course, paying a good salary.’
He explains that the company is active in provision of train drivers and wagon inspectors for the German market, as well as acting as a large provider of training courses for the railway industry. ‘We are most active in freight and regional passenger traffic’, adds Dieter. ‘We provide the incumbents with stable business but we are also partnering with start-ups [who need to] launch a completely new operation. With our RU licence, we can even run the trains from day one. Due to our flexibility and long-lasting partnerships, we are rarely only a temporary option. We are an integrated service provider in the supply chain of our customers.’
Asked how MEV finds its staff, Dieter explains that the company’s main focus is on training new entrants from the labour market who are keen to learn the profession of a train driver. ‘Around 80% of our new staff are trained by us. We give people with other job profiles the chance to be part of the rail family. Typically an untrained starter is ready to drive trains in around 13-14 months.
‘We organise theoretical training in our three schools in Mannheim, Essen and Hannover. The practical training is done by our experienced drivers on the trains we are operating.’ Dieter says the real work starts after the driver has received an initial licence to drive. Then comes the traction and route knowledge tests. ‘The duration depends on the traffic we use the driver for’, he says. ‘One of the most important points [to emphasise] is that we train our drivers on the theory, then we use our simulators for [operational] scenarios, and we invest a lot in vehicle and route knowledge. Many of our drivers can be used really flexibly all over Germany.’
On the thorny questions of language and immigration, Dieter says that the company expects at least a B2 competency level in German. ‘Over the years ahead, I hope that English will be the standard language in Europe — same language, same rules, same training. It is a dream, but dreams can sometimes become reality’, he believes.
A priority for the business is to develop flexible personnel able to adapt to different operating companies or driving tasks. ‘We train them for different customers, rule books, applications and route or vehicle knowledge. Due to the nature of our business, our people are used to serving different customers in parallel’, Dieter reports. This flexible approach means that MEV staff can ‘have better productivity’ than in-house crew, he adds, although this is dependent on each customer’s operating requirements.
Future growth
Dieter says he is optimistic that the company will see further growth in the years ahead, driven by increasing on-rail competition in both freight and passenger operations, and by what he sees as changing traffic patterns in rail operations in Germany.
‘We typically have around 300 drivers and wagon inspectors [on our books]. This has been quite stable over the last few years, but we expect growth in the next five.’
Investment in training
Faced with an acute and enduring problem, railways are trying to be proactive in addressing the skills crisis. Deutsche Bahn is heavily expanding vocational recruitment; for 2026 it plans to take on around 850 trainee train drivers, as part of roughly 5 200 new apprentices and dual-study students. DB also has extensive Quereinstieg programmes for people changing careers.
SBB has made career changers a particularly important part of its strategy by offering a paid 15-month training programme for people becoming passenger or freight locomotive drivers, with no previous railway experience required.
Training courses are organised several times a year by the national operator, while it is also seeking to mitigate some of the impact of antisocial working hours. SBB pays additional allowances for night and Sunday work and offers part-time employment down to 60% of full-time after completion of training in some driving positions in its passenger business. Night shifts can also be used to unlock additional time off.
While flexible labour markets and skills-based approaches to immigration have been used over recent years to plug gaps in the workforce across Europe, in rail this approach raises specific hurdles.
A particular challenge remains the language barrier: Germany’s federal employment agency says that since 2024, hiring growth has been driven exclusively by foreign workers, while the number of German and EU workers is increasingly a reflection of an ageing population. But for train driving, German RUs have found that a foreign applicant may be technically suitable, but they still need to reach the required level in German before undertaking safety-critical training. This can add prohibitive time and cost to the onboarding process.
Short-term labour agencies
Given these macro-level barriers, it is no surprise that an ecosystem is emerging to try to at least limit their impact, even if the driver shortage cannot be fully eliminated in the near term.
Sharing or leasing of driving staff between railway undertakings is possible in the DACH region, and it is used commercially, particularly in rail freight. But understandably, the receiving operator must ensure that the incoming driver is authorised for its trains, routes, operating rules and safety-management system.
Swiss provider Widmer Rail Services is one example of a company that offers qualified locomotive drivers to other railway undertakings. Its drivers include those with various Swiss qualification categories as well as German Class 3 drivers, and WRS says its personnel can operate throughout Switzerland and on cross-border traffic. Switzerland also has a formal regulatory framework for temporary labour market transfers. Companies providing temporary staff on a commercial basis require the appropriate cantonal or/and federal licences, including additional requirements for cross-border activities.
In Austria, the government also allows short-term leasing of staff in certain fields. This is defined as a situation where an employee remains employed by the supplying company but is made available to another business and works under the latter’s direction.
Germany, meanwhile, allows railway undertakings to use external personnel, including leased employees, provided the relevant requirements of the railway undertaking’s safety management system and driver authorisation regime are met.
An unexpected answer to the language question
While EU railway interoperability directives have gradually sought to harmonise train driver licensing and certification processes, policymakers have deliberately stopped short of formalising an operating language for traincrew across the bloc (RG 8.23 p40).
The EU Agency for Railways (ERA) explicitly describes the European system as a common certification scheme, while recognising the need for infrastructure-specific competences. The current approach looks pragmatic: retain national operating languages while trying to create a common multilingual communication system for cross-border operations.
The operating language is safety critical, and as a result, the usage can be very different from an ordinary conversation. Consequently, the EU has historically preferred national languages and standardised terminology and phraseology, rather than introducing a common language universally for railway communication.
While there are those who lobby for English to be adopted as the operational lingua franca for cross-border operations, a more esoteric — or romantic — option also exists: Esperanto, invented in the late 19th century by ophthalmologist LL Zamenhof, who sought to develop a language with a highly logical structure that could form the basis for a global ‘shared second tongue’.
Amid reports that the language is enjoying something of a renaissance, interest in Esperanto among elements of the railway community has endured for decades. The International Federation of Esperanto Railwaymen promotes Esperanto as a professional railway language, and UIC has repeatedly reported on IFEF’s activities. In 2022, for example, IFEF’s president said that the organisation would work to promote Esperanto as a professional language for railway operations.
Meanwhile, UIC’s RailLexic railway terminology database includes Esperanto alongside 23 other languages. Perhaps more widespread adoption cannot be ruled out.
This article first appeared in the September 2026 issue of Railway Gazette International
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