Discover our History
From our first store in 1792 to our 230th anniversary celebrations in 2022, we’ve worked hard to create a special place to start your career journey.
We’re not just on a journey - we also like to think that we’re on a pretty important mission, too. Our strategy is to continue leading the way as a global retailer in travel essentials for the world’s travelling customer, and as Britain’s most popular high street stationer, bookseller and newsagent.
It’s our purpose that really makes us stand out as a retailer: to make every one of life’s journeys better.
We’re the kind of business that always thinks a little bit bigger. Which means our future looks something like this: even more prime locations and brand new and exciting store concepts for all kinds of customers in all kinds of places around the world.
To make that happen, we’re building our presence online and in person, partnering with brands like the Post Office, M&S and Costa Coffee, offering more services like Click and Collect, and creating even more ways to help our customers find whatever they need.
Put simply, we’re channeling our energy and excitement into going even further, even faster, when it comes to making every journey better.
We strive to be outward-facing and customer-focused:
an organisation that keeps its promises. Living our four key values is an important part of achieving this aim.
We keep the customer at the heart of all that we do.
Our people are respected and valued in an honest, open environment.
We push ourselves to achieve ambitious and competitive results – delivered with pace.
We take personal responsibility and deliver what we say we will.
From our first store in 1792 to our 230th anniversary celebrations in 2022, we’ve worked hard to create a special place to start your career journey.
We’re proud to be the kind of business who always does the right thing when it comes to our people, our communities, and our planet.
It is well know that diverse teams perform better and we want our organisation to reflect the diversity of our customer base and the markets we operate in.
We can take you from our brilliant website at whsmith.co.uk, to our UK retail stores, to our head offices in London, Swindon and Sydney, to InMotion HQ in Las Vegas, and almost everywhere in between.