Warehousing, logistics & supply chain
The one family where agencies are not an alternative to applying direct — they are how the industry hires, by default. Which also means this is the family where you most need to know what you are signing up to.
Every site below returned HTTP 200 and named warehousing, logistics, transport or supply chain work on its own pages. Checked 15 November 2026.
Read this first: which of these jobs are permanent, and which are not
Nobody tells people this, and it is the thing that matters most. Two different labour markets share one job family.
Usually agency temp, paid by the agency, often week to week: Warehouse Operative, Picker-Packer, Goods-In Operative, Loader, most shift and seasonal work. You can start one of these within days — sometimes the same week. The trade-off is that the agency is your employer, the hours can be withdrawn, and continuity of income is not guaranteed. If you need money this month, this is the fastest route into work in the entire UK economy. If you need a permanent contract for a mortgage application, it is not what you want.
Usually permanent, and employed directly by the company: Stock Controller, Transport Planner, Transport Administrator, Logistics Coordinator, Supply Chain Administrator, Inventory Analyst, Shift Supervisor, Procurement Assistant. Office-based or office-and-floor, salaried, and they are the roles with a career in front of them.
The move between them is normal and it mostly happens from the inside. Warehouse operatives get offered permanent stock control, team leader and transport office roles by the companies they are placed at, far more often than outsiders get hired into those roles cold. If the permanent office side is the goal and you cannot get in from outside, a temp placement at a good employer is a legitimate way in — just go in knowing that is the plan, and tell the agency so.
The job titles this family uses
- Warehouse Operative
- Picker-Packer
- Stock Controller
- Shift Supervisor
- Transport Administrator
- Transport Planner
- Logistics Coordinator
- Supply Chain Administrator
- Inventory Analyst
- Procurement Assistant
The warning for this family: “Transport Planner” is two unrelated careers
In logistics, a Transport Planner plans vehicle routes and driver schedules for a haulier or a distribution operation. Shift work, operational, no degree required, and you can be doing it within a year of starting in a transport office.
In local government and consultancy, a Transport Planner models traffic and designs road and public transport schemes. It needs a planning, geography or civil engineering degree and chartered membership is the career path. The two jobs share no skills whatsoever.
Both titles appear on the same job boards. Check whether the employer is a haulier or a council before you apply, and if an advert mentions modelling software or planning policy, it is the second one.
Two more worth knowing. “Logistics Coordinator” means goods-in paperwork and stock movements at a warehouse, customs documentation and bookings at a freight forwarder, and production planning at a manufacturer — read the company, not the title. And “Supply Chain Manager” in a small company often means the person who does the ordering, while in a large one it is a strategic post with a team; the salary range in adverts gives it away faster than the description does.
How people actually get in
If you want to be working within a fortnight
You need no qualifications at all for operative roles. Register with two or three of the volume agencies below, say you are available immediately, and say which shifts you will work — nights and weekends pay more and are harder for them to fill, so offering them moves you up the list the same day.
What raises your pay after that is short, cheap and specific:
- Forklift certification — counterbalance and reach are the two that matter, accredited through RTITB or ITSSAR. A few days and a few hundred pounds, and it lifts your hourly rate immediately and permanently. This is the single best return on money and time anywhere in this family. Some agencies will fund or part-fund it once you have worked for them, so ask before you pay.
- HGV licence and Driver CPC — Category C, then C+E for articulated. Much bigger money, much bigger commitment. Many hauliers and some agencies run funded training schemes in exchange for a commitment to stay; worth asking about directly.
- ADR for hazardous goods, if you already drive. A specialist add-on that pays well because fewer people hold it.
If you want the permanent, office-based side
This is the half of the family nobody writes about, and the qualifications are genuinely worth having because so few people in the industry hold them:
- CILT — the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport runs qualifications from Level 2 upwards. Recognised across the industry and the standard credential on the planning and supply chain side.
- Level 3 Supply Chain Practitioner and Level 3 Supply Chain Lead Professional apprenticeships — the funded route into the office side, earning while studying.
- Transport Manager CPC — the serious one. It is the legal qualification a company needs somebody to hold in order to run an operator’s licence at all. That makes holders structurally in demand rather than fashionably in demand, and it is the qualification most likely to change what you earn.
Transport and storage is also one of the largest school-leaver destinations outside retail and hospitality, with one important difference from retail: this industry hires through agencies as its normal mechanism rather than as an exception, so the list below is genuinely most of the door, not a side entrance.
The verified agencies
CV drop means you can hand over a CV and be done with it. Alerts means the sign-up on offer is a subscription to job emails — bookmark and sweep those instead.
The permanent and supply chain specialists
Go here if you want a salaried contract and the office side. These three are the ones that do it properly.
| Agency | Covers | Perm / temp | Registering & contact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bis Henderson bis-henderson.com |
Supply chain and logistics specifically — logistics, supply chain, transport and procurement. The most specialist agency in this family and the best first call for permanent office roles | Both | [email protected] · 01604 876 345 |
| Cast UK castuk.com |
Supply chain, procurement, logistics, transport and distribution. The broadest title coverage of anyone here, and genuinely focused on permanent appointments | Both | [email protected] · 0333 121 3345 |
| Kenect Recruitment kenectrecruitment.co.uk |
Logistics, supply chain, transport, driving, distribution and procurement. Covers both halves of this page, which is unusual | Both | [email protected] · 0333 006 5656 |
The volume agencies — fastest route into paid work
These place at scale. Expect temporary and shift work first, with permanent roles available through them too.
| Agency | Covers | Perm / temp | Registering & contact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Staffline staffline.co.uk |
Industrial and logistics staffing at the largest scale in the UK. The Logistics People is now part of Staffline, so this one listing covers both | Both | CV drop [email protected] |
| Blue Arrow bluearrow.co.uk |
Logistics, warehouse, transport, driving, HGV and forklift roles. Names forklift and HGV work explicitly, which most volume agencies do not | Both | Branch contact details on site |
| Gi Group uk.gigroup.com |
Logistics and warehousing, national branch network | Both | CV drop 01246 267 000 |
| Pertemps pertemps.co.uk |
Driving and warehouse work, temporary and permanent, with one of the largest branch networks in the country | Both | Alerts-led — sweep the job search page, or walk into a branch, which still works here |
| Driver Hire driverhire.co.uk |
Driving and logistics specifically — HGV, van and transport roles, through a national franchise network | Both | CV drop Alerts Local office numbers on site |
| Prime Appointments prime-appointments.co.uk |
Warehouse and transport roles. Essex and Suffolk — a regional specialist rather than a national, so better placed if you are in the East | Both | CV drop [email protected] 01376 502999 · 01284 413456 |
The big operators — apply to these direct, no agency needed
Third-party logistics companies run the warehouses and fleets for retailers and manufacturers, employ tens of thousands of people between them, and advertise permanent roles on their own careers sites. This is where the permanent contracts are, and going direct means no agency between you and the employer.
| Employer | Covers | How to apply |
|---|---|---|
| Wincanton wincanton.co.uk/careers |
Logistics, warehousing, supply chain, transport, distribution and freight across UK sites | Direct on their own careers site |
| GXO jobs.gxo.com |
Logistics, warehousing, supply chain, driving and forklift roles — one of the largest contract logistics employers in the UK | Direct on their own jobs site |
Worth adding to that list yourself: look up which distribution centres are actually within travelling distance of you and check those companies by name. In most of the country the large sheds near the motorway junction are the biggest employers in the area, and all of them recruit on their own sites as well as through agencies.
Dropped from this list on 15 November 2026, and why. Two agencies that appear on other people’s lists did not pass:
- Challenge-trg — the site loads but every page returns “Coming Soon”. There is nothing there to register with.
- Encore Personnel — encorepersonnel.co.uk no longer resolves at all, and the .com address refused the connection. We could not verify it, so it is not listed.
Also The Logistics People, which has merged into Staffline and is covered by that listing instead.
Registering well
Registering puts you in a database. A conversation puts you in a consultant’s head. In this family that is close to literal: shifts get filled by a consultant working down a list of people they can picture turning up. Being someone they have spoken to, rather than a profile, is the whole difference.
Five things to say in the first contact. Say them unprompted — it marks you out immediately, because most people do not:
- When you can start. “Immediately” is the single most valuable thing you can say to a logistics agency.
- Which shifts you will work. Nights, early starts and weekends pay more and are harder to fill. Offering them gets you placed first.
- Whether you want temporary or permanent. Be direct. If you are taking temp work as a route to a permanent role at a good employer, say that too — a decent consultant will work with it rather than against it.
- How you will get there, and whether you can do early shifts without public transport. This is the question that silently kills placements, because distribution centres are out of town and the first shift starts before the buses.
- Any licences or tickets — forklift and which type, HGV category, ADR, and when they expire.
One thing to check before you accept anything: who is paying you, and under what arrangement. Ask whether you are employed by the agency on PAYE, and what the holiday pay arrangement is. It is a completely normal question, any legitimate agency will answer it plainly, and anyone who will not has told you something useful.
The weekly sweep
Ten minutes, one bookmark folder, nothing pushed at you. This family moves faster than the others, so if you want immediate work, sweep twice a week rather than once.
- staffline.co.uk and bluearrow.co.uk — the volume, and the fastest starts
- bis-henderson.com and castuk.com — if the permanent office side is what you want, these two every week
- pertemps.co.uk and uk.gigroup.com — the branch networks, best if you are outside a city
- wincanton.co.uk/careers and jobs.gxo.com — permanent, direct, no agency in between
- Search stock controller, transport administrator and logistics coordinator on Indeed, your area, last seven days, filtered to permanent. These are the permanent titles, they are advertised far less loudly than warehouse shifts, and the people applying for them are not the people applying for everything else