Northampton Royal Mail site gears up for Christmas rush as hundreds set to be recruited

The town is one of five locations where seasonal parcel sort centres will provide additional capacity to handle the surge in cards, gifts and online shopping orders over Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas.

Across the five centres in Northampton, Atherstone, Stoke-on-Trent, Milton Keynes and Daventry, Royal Mail is creating 152,300 square metres of extra temporary space – equivalent to almost 22 football pitches.

The company has not provided a breakdown of how many of the seasonal jobs will be based specifically in Northampton.

Nationally, 12,500 temporary mail sorting positions are available in England, alongside 5,000 delivery and collection roles across the UK and 2,100 temporary HGV and MGV driver jobs.

The positions will generally run from late October until early January 2027, with demand expected to peak during December. No previous experience is required and a variety of shifts will be available.

Daventry will also play a significant role in Royal Mail’s Christmas operation. As well as hosting one of the five seasonal sort centres, the town is home to one of the company's two parcel super hubs, alongside Warrington.

Jamie Stephenson, chief operating officer at Royal Mail, said: “Christmas is the busiest and most important time of the year for our customers, and we're 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've been planning for it since January.”

Royal Mail is also adding 7,500 hired vans to its fleet for the seasonal campaign and employing more than 1,400 road haulage contractors each day to transport festive mail and parcels.

The company is particularly encouraging applications from people aged under 25, including those looking for their first experience of employment.