Royal Mail is pulling out all the stops in its seasonal drive to deliver Christmas to customers. The business has announced it is recruiting almost 22,000 temporary workers to help transport, sort and deliver the additional parcels and mail the company expects to process over the festive period.
There are 12,500 mail sorting roles available in England, 1243 in Scotland, 485 in Northern Ireland and 355 in Wales.
There are also 5000 delivery and collection roles available across the country and 2100 temporary truck driver roles.
The temporary positions will be located in two parcel super hubs in Warrington and Daventry, five seasonal parcel sort centres, four parcel hubs and 37 mail centres across the country, with a variety of shifts available.
A total 152,300 square metres of extra temporary space – equivalent to almost 22 football pitches – has been created across the five seasonal parcel sort centres located in, Atherstone, Stoke-on-Trent, Milton Keynes, Northampton and Daventry.
The four parcel hubs are based in Stonebridge Park, London, Wishaw, Scotland, Severn Beach, Bristol, and Wakefield, Yorkshire.
The seasonal recruits will help sort the growing number of online shopping orders expected before they are taken to Royal Mail’s 1200 delivery offices.
Royal Mail chief operating officer, Jamie Stephenson, said: ‘Christmas is the busiest and most important time of the year for our customers, and we are working hard across every part of our operation to deliver for them. While many people start thinking about Christmas as the festive season approaches, we have been planning for it since January. From recruiting thousands of seasonal colleagues to strengthening capacity across our network, we are making significant investments to help ensure every card, gift and parcel arrives in time for Christmas.’
The seasonal roles will run from late October through to early January 2027. The period for the additional temporary work includes Black Friday and Cyber Monday but will be at its peak in December. Parcelforce Worldwide is also recruiting additional drivers and indoor workers.
Royal Mail has been preparing for months to deliver a bumper Christmas.
The company will be adding to the fleet of 6000 vehicles (including 9000 EVs) with an additional 7500 hire vans to support this year’s seasonal campaign. In addition, over 1400 road haulage contractors per day are being hired to transport the festive mail and parcels across the country.
Royal Mail has the biggest network of parcel points to make it as convenient as possible for customers to collect, send and return parcels. There are around 30,000 locations including 3300 lockers, 8500 Royal Mail shops, 11,500 Post Office branches and 1200 Royal Mail customer service points.
Royal Mail has also made it easier to use its 115,000 postboxes to send smaller parcels that will fit through a letterbox, enabling customers to request proof of posting using the Royal Mail app, and have rolled out 3,500 postboxes of the future designed to accept larger parcels up to the size of a shoebox.
Royal Mail has set up a dedicated website for people to apply for the Christmas positions, https://careers.royalmailgroup.com/christmas
https://couriernews.co.uk/blog/royal-mail-to-hire-22000-temporary-workers-to-help-deliver-christmas/