How To Become A Warehouse Manager

What Is A Warehouse Manager?

Similar jobs: Storage and distribution manager

Ever wondered how large companies transport their products and keep track of their stock? Even if you haven’t, it’s a great question to ask because it could be your first step into the HUGE world of transport and logistics careers.

How large companies handle products and stock is largely down to their storage and distribution managers, who do exactly what it says on the tin – they organise the storage and distribution of goods for the company.

If you’re an organised person who gets a thrill from seeing a project from start to finish, stop for a moment and think about a career in distribution management. It can be a big earner, with a chance to work with all kinds of brands (including your favourites) across the UK.

What Does A Warehouse Manager Do?

Work in a warehouse or office to organise the safe storage and distribution of goods. This includes organising the shipment of goods, coordinating vehicles, drivers and routes. A storage and distribution manager will also agree and negotiate about contracts, and prepare any paperwork for regulatory bodies as well as making sure health and safety standards are reached, along with monitoring all stock. This is an extremely varied role, and would suit someone organised with a good eye for detail.

In your working day, you might:

• work closely with clients, transporters and suppliers
• plan product delivery
• keep an eagle eye on storage space
• track stock levels using modern technology
• make sure stock is stored in a safe and smart way
• manage, hire and organise training for warehouse staff

Useful Skills To Put On Your CV:

• Fantastic teamwork skills, be it with colleagues or customers. Great interpersonal communication skills will always be needed.
• Managerial skills; this is a role that involves managing others and having to consider not only what you want from your career, but managing other people’s careers too.
• Time management is a key skill to have in any role but especially in a demanding role when you are under pressure to deliver a service. Good time-keeping is a sign you have good self-management skills.
• Motivational skills – as a manager, you will need to be able to motivate your staff to do their best, so consider how you might go about doing this.
• Problem solving skills – distribution doesn’t always run smoothly and you will need to solve issues and think on your feet.

• Positive attitude – if others are looking to you for guidance, you need to stay upbeat and show them you are a reliable and great person who has their backs.
• Good basic digital skills – you could be in charge of shifting millions of units around the UK.
• Being able to adapt and change a plan if things go wrong.

How Do You Get These Skills?

Vocational qualifications and work experience will help you build these skills over time.

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School, College And Training

You can work your way up the career ladder straight out of school by applying for a transport and logistics job like being a transport clerk.

For a job like this, you’ll find that having five GCSEs or the equivalent with grades 9-4/A*-C is useful, especially if you have maths and English.

From there, you can seek promotion over time as you build skills and experience. You can also look into further training with your employers, or full/part-time courses you can do out of working hours.

You can study for an HNC or HND in a variety of fields include transport, logistics, supply chains or geography and they’ll all be relevant to this career.

Supply Chain Apprenticeships

Apprenticeship schemes are another way into a storage and distribution career. They are unlikely to include positions of management straight away, but that’s a good thing. An apprenticeship is a way to get trained and soak up on-the-job experience while getting paid for it, and never being given more responsibility than you can handle. You can build up to getting more responsibility (like a leadership role) when you feel ready for it.

Your employer of choice may be advertising apprenticeships on their career websites, or it’s always worth checking the find an apprenticeship website, please follow this link.

Graduates, University & Degrees

The world of transport and logistics is getting increasingly sophisticated. If you want to fast-track your way into warehousing careers at management level, you’ll find that many (but not all) companies look for graduates.

These example degrees would look good on your CV:

• Business
• Business with languages
• Computing
• Economics
• Geography
• Information systems
• Management
• Science
• Transport, distribution or logistics.

Many large organisations run graduate transport and supply management schemes if that’s something you might be interested in looking into…

Postgraduate education is also an option, because Masters in logistics and supply chain management are available. Why not look at CILT UK? They can keep you up to date with the industry, and a student membership is also available.

Work Experience Tips

Finding relevant work experience in areas such as storage, retail, admin and general warehousing could be something to explore. Have a think about what kind of company you’d like to work for, then get in touch with them and ask if you can do some shadowing and receive some mentoring.

Getting Experience

Examples of relevant work experience include:

• Work shadowing (even if it’s just for a day)
• Work placements in a company
• Work placements on a degree course

To find jobs for young people in this role, search on jobs boards for early career roles with these words in the title:

• warehousing apprenticeships
• graduate warehouse manager
• warehousing operative traineeships
• supply chain and logistics degree apprenticeships

When thinking about work experience, summer jobs for the CV or early roles to get your foot in the door, you could consider developing skills in the following areas:

• Packaging and goods
• Order picking
• Sorting
• Warehousing
• Admin

Apprenticeships and graduate schemes are another great way of getting started.

These employers all carry our Youth Friendly Employer Mark. We work with them to make sure that they are providing great support and opportunities to young people.

Click on an employer to find out more about them and the youth-friendly opportunities they offer, from work experience and apprenticeships through to graduate schemes.