Changing career into logistics: where your experience already fits

Skills that transfer more than you'd think

• ▸Retail and hospitality — working to a clock, coping at peak, dealing with people who are unhappy
• ▸Customer service and contact centres — documentation, chasing, keeping people informed when there's bad news
• ▸Administration and finance — accuracy under volume, which is most of a forwarding or customs role
• ▸Armed forces — process discipline, kit and asset accountability, shift work
• ▸Trades and manufacturing — safety awareness, plant familiarity, understanding a process end to end

Common entry routes

• ▸Warehouse operative, then team leader — often the fastest way in, and licences can be gained on site
• ▸Transport or shipping administrator — desk-based, and the best way to learn how the paperwork really works
• ▸Customer service or import/export clerk within a forwarder — a genuine career route towards operations
• ▸Temporary bookings — a low-risk way for both sides to try each other out

Rewrite your CV around the operation

Lead with the volume, pace, accuracy and systems side of your current work, not the job title. "Managed a 40-line delivery intake against a fixed cut-off" is logistics experience even if the sign above the door said something else.

Learn the vocabulary

You don't need a qualification to start, but knowing the difference between a forwarder, a haulier, a shipping line and a 3PL — and roughly what a bill of lading or a customs entry does — makes an enormous difference in interview. An hour of reading is enough to sound informed.

Be realistic about the first step, not the destination

Expect to start a rung lower than your current level and to move quickly if you're good. Progression in this industry is genuinely fast for people who learn the detail, because there aren't enough of them.

Be honest with your consultant

Tell us what you'll accept on pay, hours and travel, and what you won't. We'd rather place you once in the right role than three times in the wrong one.