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- Plan and organise the transportation of goods around the world
- You'll need to be highly organised, have good attention to detail and great communication skills
- Opportunities to progress into management roles and to work outside the UK
As a freight forwarder, you'll organise and ship goods to and from the UK and overseas by road, rail, air and sea.
DAY-TO-DAY DUTIES
- Managing freight bookings using a computer system
- Checking order, tax and customs documents are correct
- Working closely with national and international suppliers and agents
- Arranging freight deliveries and collections between ports, airports and warehouses
- Handling invoices and payments
- Keeping clients up to date with progress
- Dealing with any problems or delays
DAY-TO-DAY ENVIRONMENT
You could work standard office hours, shifts, or flexible hours if you regularly deal with countries in different time zones. You could work in an office or in a cargo warehouse.
You'll need
This role would be ideal for someone with excellent spoken and written communication skills, maths skills, and excellent organisational and planning skills.
You could start as an office assistant in a freight forwarding or logistics department and work your way up through training and promotion. You'll find it useful to have office experience and computer skills.
You're likely to need 4 or 5 GCSEs at grade 9 to 4 (A* to C), including English and maths. Some employers may prefer you to have A levels or higher qualifications. You could take an introductory course, like the ones offered by The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport and The Institute of Export and International Trade.
You could also do a degree before applying to join an organisation's management training scheme. Most subjects are accepted but you may have an advantage if you study transport and distribution management, logistics and supply chain management, business and management and foreign languages with business studies.
Alternatively, you could do an international freight forwarding advanced apprenticeship.
You'll find it useful to speak a foreign language if the company operates internationally.
CAREER PROSPECTS
With experience you could become an import-export manager, a specialist in international trade law, or overseas account manager.