What is the state of logistics and supply chain hiring right now?

The wider UK labour market is running in what analysts call a 'low hire, low fire' mode: recruitment is weaker, redundancies have only edged up, and vacancies have slipped below pre-pandemic levels the Low Pay Commission's 2025 report. That backdrop makes it harder to lean on a rotating cast of contractors for skills you need every single day.

Hiring conditions have stayed cautious through 2025, but demand hasn't disappeared. It has concentrated. Employers are still moving quickly for specialist, hard-to-replace skills even while general recruitment slows the KPMG and REC UK Report on Jobs. Dangerous goods compliance sits squarely in that specialist category: it is regulated, safety-critical and can't be paused when the market wobbles.

So the question shippers are asking today is simple. If a capability is core to keeping freight legal and moving, why rent it? More and more, the answer is to own it.

Which dangerous goods roles are UK shippers bringing in-house?

The anchor role is the Dangerous Goods Safety Adviser (DGSA), a legal requirement for most businesses that consign or carry hazardous freight by road, rail or inland waterway. Around it, shippers are building out compliance managers, hazmat coordinators, warehouse safety leads and documentation specialists who own classification, packing, labelling and the paperwork that follows a consignment across borders.

This mirrors a broader pattern: the biggest volume increase in UK vacancies recently landed in professional, scientific and technical activities, up 5,000 in the August to October 2025 quarter ONS vacancy figures. Dangerous goods work is technical work. It rewards people who understand the rules, keep certifications current and can make a judgement call when a shipment doesn't fit neatly into a box.

The dynamic driving in-housing is control. When expertise lives inside the team, knowledge compounds. Your people learn your products, your routes and your customers, and that context is hard to buy on a short-term basis.

How do you hire well for dangerous goods expertise?

Start with the certification that isn't optional. A DGSA qualification, current and relevant to your transport modes and hazard classes, is your baseline filter. Beyond that, look for people who can translate regulation into day-to-day practice: someone who can train a warehouse team, sign off documentation and spot a mislabelled pallet before it leaves the dock.

Be realistic about supply. Specialist, compliance-heavy fields tend to carry a stubborn share of hard-to-fill vacancies, as seen in adjacent regulated sectors where roughly 70% of firms reported at least one hard-to-fill vacancy the AI Labour Market Survey 2025. If certified specialists are scarce, build a pipeline: hire for aptitude and fund the qualification. Growing your own is often faster than waiting for the perfect CV.

• Screen for the right DGSA certification and the specific hazard classes and transport modes you handle.
• Test practical judgement, not just knowledge: ask how they'd handle a misclassified or damaged consignment.
• Value cross-border documentation experience, since that's where costly errors hide.
• Plan for training as a route in, not only as a nice-to-have.

And move at pace. In a cautious market the strongest specialists still get snapped up quickly, so a slow process costs you the best people.

How does Reed.ai help shippers hire dangerous goods specialists?

This is where we come in. We search a database of 15 million candidates to find people with the certifications and compliance experience your freight depends on, then rank a shortlist for you to review. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost. Ready to build dangerous goods expertise into your team? Start hiring with us today.