The UK arm of a large paper and packaging group, with head office in Northampton and around 80 UK sites making cardboard packaging, recycling used paper and running paper mills.
Smurfit Westrock is a very large packaging group, and its UK business makes much of the cardboard packaging used in everyday life: corrugated boxes, folding cartons for products such as food and household goods, and point-of-sale displays for shops. In the UK it also collects and sorts used paper and card for recycling, and runs paper mills, including Townsend Hook, which make paper from recycled fibre. The company was formed when Smurfit Kappa combined with WestRock, and its UK web pages carry the Smurfit Westrock name.
The company's UK site directory describes its approach as "sustainable packaging delivered by people and processes" and links to a 2025 sustainability report. We did not find a formal mission statement on the pages we read, so we have not invented one. Many of its UK sites list certificates including FSC and PEFC for responsibly managed forests, ISO 14001 for environmental management and BRCGS for food packaging safety. The directory also mentions a safety campaign called "Safety for life" and an inclusion programme called "EveryOne".
In the UK, the directory lists around 80 sites. Corrugated packaging sites include Abercarn, Barnstaple, Chelmsford, Diss, Leeds, Northampton, Peterborough and West Auckland. Folding carton sites include Yate near Bristol, Leicester, East Kilbride and Newcastle, and display sites include Corby and Wetherby. Recovered fibre sites, where used paper is collected for recycling, include Birmingham, Blackburn, Glasgow, Nottingham and Snodland. Its UK head office is in Northampton, there is a shared services centre in Liverpool, and Experience Centres in Northampton, Mold and Yate let customers test packaging designs. The Townsend Hook paper mill is in Kent.
On culture, the company's careers invitation reads "Discover your true potential and progress your career". The safety and inclusion programmes show where it puts its effort, though we did not find first-hand accounts or figures about working life, so these are the company's own descriptions. As a very large manufacturer, it combines factory and mill roles with design, sales, logistics, finance and head-office functions, in many different towns and cities across the country.
The jobs at a company like this are varied. There are machine operators and maintenance engineers at factories and mills, packaging designers who create boxes and displays, recycling and logistics teams who collect used paper, technical and quality staff who test materials, and sales, finance, human resources and IT staff. Engineering, design, chemistry, business and environmental studies are all possible starting points. Check the company's UK website for current roles.
Website: www.smurfitwestrock.com
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