Distribution Centre and Facilities Manager

About this role

Company description

Furniturebox is a fast-growing online furniture business. Our mission is to make beautiful homes possible for everyone, with ease, whatever your budget. We have a gorgeous range of stylish and practical furniture for all rooms, and a helpful team ready to answer any questions, with our 4.9 Trustpilot rating showing how much we care. Our fast, free next-day delivery with 8pm cut-off and our finance options mean our products can be in their new homes hassle-free. With big plans to become the best furniture company in the UK, USA and globally, we’re all about the moments, the memories, and the feeling of truly being at home.

Role Summary

As the leader of our Distribution Centre team, this role is responsible for the value-driven, safe, efficient, and cost-effective operation of the 88,000 sq ft furniture distribution centre at Chippenham HQ, and for facilities management across the Bristol and Warminster office locations. The DC&FM owns the operational performance reporting and KPI framework for all sites, and holds accountability for health & safety compliance, culture, and risk management across the distribution centre, offices, and workforce. The role is based full-time at Chippenham, with day-to-day office facilities matters at Bristol and Warminster managed remotely and supported by local site contacts.

Duties and Responsibilities - Include but not limited to

Warehouse Operations (Chippenham)

• Lead and develop the Distribution Centre Team (approx. 20 people), promoting accountability, teamwork, safety, and continual improvement
• Oversee inbound/outbound flow of bulky furniture goods, including goods-in, put-away, pick/pack, and dispatch operations
• Manage space utilisation and racking/layout planning appropriate to large-format furniture stock
• Own labour planning to meet volume and service demands
• Manage operational relationships with couriers, freight carriers and inbound suppliers on delivery scheduling and dock management
• Support in upcoming ERP migration from an operational standpoint

Health & Safety — All Sites

• Act as the senior H&S accountable person across the distribution centre and both office locations, ensuring full compliance with HSE regulations
• Distribution Centre (Chippenham): manual handling, Distribution centre racking safety, fire safety, MHE operation
• Office-specific (Bristol, Warminster): DSE assessments, fire safety, general workplace risk management
• Own and maintain the risk assessment register, method statements (RAMS), and COSHH documentation for all three sites
• Lead incident/accident investigation, root-cause analysis, and reporting
• Chair regular H&S committee meetings and toolbox talks at Chippenham; ensure equivalent H&S briefings/communication reach Bristol and Warminster staff remotely
• Manage the schedule of statutory inspections across all sites (racking, fire equipment, lifting equipment, electrical testing/PAT, fire risk assessments)
• Ensure all staff and contractors across sites hold required certifications and that training records are current
• Own fire evacuation plans, first aid provision, and emergency procedures for Chippenham, Bristol, and Warminster

Facilities Management — Multi-Site

• Responsible for the upkeep, compliance, and lifecycle management of the building fabric, plant, and equipment at Chippenham (racking, MHE, dock levellers, fire systems, lighting)
• Extend facilities oversight to the Bristol and Warminster offices, covering building maintenance, statutory compliance, cleaning, and workplace environment standards — managed primarily remotely
• Manage planned preventative maintenance (PPM) schedules and contractor relationships across all three sites (fire, electrical, HVAC, racking inspection, pest control, waste, cleaning)
• Standardise facilities processes and supplier contracts across sites where practical to drive cost efficiency and consistency of compliance
• Act as primary point of contact for Bristol and Warminster staff on facilities issues, working with local office contacts who provide day-to-day, on-the-ground eyes between visits
• Own the facilities budget across all three locations, including maintenance spend, utilities, and capital improvement projects

Reporting & KPIs

• Design, own, and maintain a consolidated multi-site KPI dashboard, reporting into the Operations Director on a weekly/monthly cadence
• Productivity (Distribution Centre): units/orders picked per hour, dispatch accuracy, on-time-in-full (OTIF) etc.
• Cost: staff and distribution centre consumables cost vs. budget, facilities maintenance spend vs. budget per site
• Quality: damage/return rates (critical for furniture — high value, high damage risk), stock accuracy/shrinkage
• Facilities (All Sites): equipment downtime, statutory compliance status by site
• H&S (All Sites): incident/accident rates, near-miss reporting volume, audit/inspection compliance scores, training compliance %
• Present monthly performance reviews to senior leadership with root-cause analysis and corrective action plans for any KPI deviation, broken out by site where relevant
• Maintain accurate, auditable records across all three locations to support board-level and insurance/compliance reporting
• Use data to drive continuous improvement initiatives to increase productivity and accuracy (layout, process, staffing models, facilities spend etc.)
• Collaborate with Tech to implement automation and data-driven tools for better decision-making

What do we need from you?

Essential

• Proven experience managing a distribution centre of comparable complexity, ideally in furniture, bulky goods, or similar high-damage-risk sectors
• Experience with WMS (warehouse management systems)
• Strong track record building and reporting against operational KPIs
• Confident using Excel/BI tools for data analysis and dashboard reporting
• Experience managing facilities, contractors, and maintenance schedules and budgets, ideally across a multi-site portfolio
• Strong stakeholder management skills, comfortable reporting to senior leadership and managing relationships remotely with office-based teams
• Full UK driving licence and willingness to travel to Bristol and Warminster as needed

Desirable

• NEBOSH General Certificate (or working towards NEBOSH Diploma) and Fire Risk Assessment qualification
• SEMA racking inspection knowledge
• Experience in supporting an ERP and/or WMS migration
• Change management / continuous improvement qualification (e.g. Lean, 5S)
• Environmental/waste compliance knowledge (WEEE, packaging waste regs)

Job Type: Full-time

Benefits

• Additional leave
• Company events
• Company pension
• Employee discount
• Sick pay

Ability to commute/relocate

• Chippenham, Wiltshire: reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting work (preferred)

Experience

• Distribution centre management: 1 year (preferred)

Licence/Certification

• NEBOSH General Certificate (preferred)

Work authorisation

• United Kingdom (preferred)

Work Location: In person