By Maria Kalamatas — August 29, 2025
MILTON KEYNES, UK — August 29, 2025. The warehouse doesn’t sound like a warehouse. No clanging metal, no forklift horns, no barked orders. Just a steady electronic hum and the quiet whirr of wheels. Hundreds of squat orange robots zip across the floor, slipping under stacked crates and lifting them as if it were nothing.
Marks & Spencer opened the facility this week, calling it the most advanced in its network. For the retailer, under pressure from surging online demand and rising labor costs, the site is meant to prove that machines can keep pace where people alone cannot.
“It’s about survival, really,” said Sophie Jenkins, M&S’s logistics director, standing at the edge of the automated floor. “We had to choose: grow our workforce massively, or grow differently. This is the answer we landed on.”
A shift you can see — and feel
The building itself is vast, almost the size of several football pitches. Long aisles stretch into the distance, though most are now navigated not by humans but by robots that never tire and rarely miss a step. Screens glow with dashboards showing orders flowing in and out.
For workers, the change is stark. “It’s strange,” said James Rowe, a supervisor with 15 years at M&S depots. “In the old warehouse you shouted to be heard. Here, you talk softly because the machines do all the moving.”
Why automation now
The UK retail sector has been grappling with staff shortages since the pandemic. At the same time, customer expectations — next-day, sometimes same-day — keep climbing. Automation was once presented as a test. It is no longer a test. It is the model.
Human jobs, different jobs
The robots may carry crates, but people are still in the picture. Technicians hover nearby, checking sensors, swapping batteries, fixing glitches. Pickers now handle exceptions rather than every item.
“Robots don’t replace us,” Rowe added. “They change what we do. Some folks had doubts, sure. But if these things keep orders moving, we all stay busy.”
The bigger picture
M&S is not alone. Other big names — Tesco, ASOS, even smaller online players — are moving the same way. Analysts warn of social consequences but admit the shift is inevitable: distribution in Britain is becoming less about heavy lifting and more about code, algorithms, and systems that hum instead of roar.
Outlook
The Milton Keynes warehouse is expected to process up to 350,000 orders a week when fully scaled. To customers, that may only mean a parcel arriving faster. To M&S, it is a bet that speed and efficiency can offset shrinking margins.
Walking through the facility, you sense the future is already here — quiet, relentless, and moving on small wheels under fluorescent lights.
