Inspired by Waterstones?
The skills that make a great bookseller (product knowledge, recommending with confidence and looking after customers) are exactly what retailers want in their store teams.
RHR recruits for retailers across the UK, from shop-floor and supervisor roles to store and area management. Browse our live retail roles or register your CV and we'll be in touch.
Waterstones is the UK and Ireland’s leading bookseller, with more than 300 shops across the UK, Ireland and Europe, alongside a well-established online presence. Since its founding in 1982, the business has built a strong reputation for combining an extensive book range, expert bookseller knowledge and engaging retail experiences, establishing itself as a key player within the bookselling and publishing sectors.
Under Managing Director James Daunt, Waterstones has successfully adapted to changing consumer behaviours and increased online competition, maintaining its market-leading position while continuing to invest in growth through new store openings and digital innovation. The business also plays an influential role in promoting literature through industry-recognised initiatives such as the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, Waterstones Children's Book Prize and Waterstones Book of the Year.
Through its partnership with BookTrust, Waterstones helps improve access to books and inspire a love of reading among children across the UK, supporting literacy and educational opportunities for families and young people in local communities.
While books remain at the heart of its offering, Waterstones enhances the customer experience through cafés, gifts, games and literary events, creating welcoming destinations that foster community connections and lasting relationships with readers.
Waterstones offers career opportunities across its stores and support functions, enabling colleagues to develop their skills in bookselling, customer service and retail. Driven by a shared passion for books and customer engagement, the business supports career growth while creating exceptional experiences for readers.
Waterstones promotes literacy and a love of reading through initiatives such as the Children’s Laureate programme, helping to improve access to books and support positive educational outcomes for young people in communities across the UK.
Waterstones has been selling books since 1982. It describes the job simply: if you believe in books and understand the people who read them, you could build a career there, whatever your background, education or age.
Here's what the roles involve, how Waterstones trains its booksellers, the benefits on offer, and similar retail roles we're recruiting for right now.
Most people join Waterstones as a bookseller on the shop floor, recommending books, running displays and serving customers, and in many shops the café too. From there the path leads to running a bookshop as a Bookshop Manager. Booksellers also work alongside authors and illustrators at in-store events and literary festivals.
Waterstones' wider group includes Foyles, Hatchards (Britain's oldest bookshop) and Blackwell's, so bookselling careers aren't limited to one shop front.
Waterstones' interviews look for a genuine love of books (or good coffee) and the ability to pass that enthusiasm on to customers. Customer service is at the heart of the job, and formal qualifications matter less than knowing what readers want.
The same qualities apply across retail. Product passion, helping customers choose and keeping a shop looking its best are what store teams everywhere hire for. That's why bookselling experience carries over well to other retailers.
Waterstones advertises its own vacancies on its careers website, so we don't list them here. If you like the sound of working there, these are similar roles we're recruiting for right now.
Most roles are in its bookshops: booksellers on the shop floor, café staff in shops with a café, and Bookshop Managers who run each shop. Waterstones also offers an apprenticeship scheme.
A genuine love of books, or good coffee, and the ability to share it with customers. Waterstones says background, education and age don't decide who it hires; enthusiasm and customer service do.
Staff get 50% off books and up to 50% off other products, a welcome pack of ten books, early access to new titles through the Plus Bookseller programme, a pension with life assurance, enhanced family leave and a 24/7 employee assistance programme.
No. Waterstones advertises its own vacancies on its careers website. We recruit for retailers across the UK, and our store management and sales assistant roles suit people with bookselling experience.
