Jobs in Braintree

Braintree is a town of around 45,000 in mid-Essex, sitting at the end of a single-track branch line and ringed by road-served employment land. The textile and Crittall metal-window trade that built the town has long gone from the centre, and live vacancies now lean towards logistics, manufacturing, retail and care, with a layer of HQ and office roles on the newer parks.

Most of the recent growth is at Horizon 120, the business and innovation park off the A131 at Great Notley. CareCo has moved its national headquarters and distribution centre there, British Offsite (part of the Weston Group) runs a modular-build manufacturing factory on the park, and Medequip operates the community-equipment depot for Essex County Council from a unit on the same estate. Out on the A120 at the edge of town, Braintree Village (the former Freeport outlet, now run by Landsec) is the largest single retail employer, with more than 80 stores hiring sales and seasonal staff. Crittall Windows still makes steel frames, though its works are now down the road on the Freebournes estate in Witham rather than in Braintree itself. Around these sit the Springwood and Skyline 120 industrial estates and a long tail of warehouse and engineering SMEs.

A lot of Braintree recruitment for warehouse, driving and production work on the estates runs through agencies, so registering with a couple of local industrial recruiters alongside direct applications can help. Transport: trains from Braintree station run to London Liverpool Street in about 60 to 63 minutes, roughly hourly and direct, joining the Great Eastern Main Line at Witham. By road the A120 links west to the M11 and east to Colchester, with the A131 heading south to Chelmsford. Postcodes: CM7 covers the town itself, while CM77 covers the Great Notley side where Horizon 120 sits.