Key points:
- Royal Mail is recruiting almost 22,000 seasonal workers, including 2,100 temporary truck drivers.
- More than 1,400 road haulage contractors a day and 7,500 hire vans will support Royal Mail’s network.
- Royal Mail has opened 152,300 sqm of temporary sorting space, the size of almost 22 football pitches.
- Evri has invested £32.2 million so far this year and can handle 4.9 million parcels a day.
- Last year, volumes entering Evri’s network during peak rose by almost 40%.
Royal Mail: 22,000 extra hands
Royal Mail announced that it is recruiting almost 22,000 temporary workers to transport, sort and deliver the extra parcels and mail it expects over the festive period. The roles run from late October to early January 2027, and the busiest weeks will be in December.
The vacancies include:
- 12,500 mail sorting roles in England,
- 1,243 in Scotland, 485 in Northern Ireland and 355 in Wales,
- 5,000 delivery and collection roles across the country,
- 2,100 temporary HGV and MGV driver roles.
Parcelforce Worldwide is also recruiting additional drivers and indoor workers.
Extra trucks, vans and space
For road transport, the most important figures concern capacity on the trunk network. Royal Mail will add 7,500 hire vans to its fleet for the seasonal campaign. In addition, more than 1,400 road haulage contractors a day are being hired to move festive mail and parcels across the country.
The seasonal staff will work at two parcel super hubs in Warrington and Daventry, five seasonal parcel sort centres, four parcel hubs and 37 mail centres. The seasonal sort centres in Atherstone, Stoke-on-Trent, Milton Keynes, Northampton and Daventry add 152,300 sqm of temporary space. The four parcel hubs are in Stonebridge Park (London), Wishaw (Scotland), Severn Beach (Bristol) and Wakefield (Yorkshire). From there, parcels go to Royal Mail’s 1,200 delivery offices.
Jamie Stephenson, Royal Mail’s Chief Operating Officer, said: “While many people start thinking about Christmas as the festive season approaches, we’ve been planning for it since January.”
Evri: half a million more parcels a day
Evri Group, which describes itself as the UK’s biggest dedicated parcel delivery company, said on 26 October that it has invested £32.2 million in infrastructure, technology, automation and operations so far this year. This is part of a total investment of £100 million planned for the financial year.
Following the investment, Evri can handle 4.9 million parcels a day. Last year, volumes entering its network during peak increased by almost 40%.
Evri operates seven national sorting hubs, 80 depots and more than 500 delivery units. The investments include:
- a new third-tier operation at the Barnsley super hub,
- a second Barnsley site for fulfilment and UK Mail, now operational,
- a larger parcel locker network,
- automation, new hardware and its Evri-ware technology platform.
Evri also checks 90 million delivery photos a month with Verisnap, its own AI tool. For the peak season, the company is welcoming 7,000 additional community couriers and 3,000 colleagues.
“Preparing for it isn’t something we start in the weeks leading up to Christmas,” said Martijn De Lange, CEO of Evri Group.
What it means for hauliers
For subcontractors, peak means more work on trunk routes between hubs and sort centres, but also more pressure on schedules and rates. The run-up to Christmas is also a high-risk period. As trans.info has reported, transport companies should watch out for freight fraud in Q4.
Competition in the parcel market is also heating up in Europe, with FedEx buying into InPost, which already operates lockers in the UK.
