200 Workers. 40 Are New This Week. Who Checked?
warehouse workers in the UK
are agency or temporary staff
to verify with Certifyd
The reality of warehouse workers in the UK.
Identity verification for warehouse workers addresses the challenge of high-volume, high-turnover environments where dozens of new faces appear every week. Certifyd uses bi-directional authentication — both the site manager and the worker cryptographically prove their identity to each other in real time. When a worker arrives, the system verifies not just who they are, but that they hold an active assignment with the staffing agency that sent them, their right-to-work status, and their authorisation for that specific site. The result is audit-ready, tamper-proof records for every shift.
UK warehousing and logistics employs over 900,000 workers, with more than 35% sourced through staffing agencies. Peak periods — Black Friday, Christmas, Easter — see warehouses onboard hundreds of temporary workers per week. The speed of onboarding frequently outpaces the rigour of identity verification. A worker arrives with a name badge, gets a hi-vis vest, and starts picking orders. Nobody independently verified who they are.
Right-to-work compliance is a critical concern. The HMRC and the Fair Work Agency (launching April 2026) can inspect any warehouse and demand evidence of right-to-work checks for every person on site. When 40% of your workforce arrived through three different agencies this week, demonstrating that every individual was verified — and that the person on site is the person who was checked — becomes a serious compliance challenge.
The operational reality is that warehouse managers are responsible for output, not HR. They don’t have time to conduct thorough identity checks on every temp who walks through the door. Certifyd automates this with device-bound, bi-directional authentication — 30 seconds per worker, with tamper-proof records created automatically. No clipboards, no photocopied passports, no guesswork.
This is broken.
Here's why.
Peak periods require onboarding dozens of temps per week — identity verification is routinely skipped.
Multiple agencies supply workers to the same site, creating fragmented accountability.
Right-to-work liability falls on the hiring employer, even when workers arrive through agencies.
Warehouse managers are focused on output, not HR — identity checks are treated as an administrative burden.
Simple verification.
Every time.
Worker arrives on site — both parties open Certifyd and authenticate via their registered device
Each person’s identity is cryptographically verified to the other — bi-directional, not one-way
The system confirms the worker’s active assignment with their agency, right-to-work status, and site authorisation
A tamper-proof record is created: who, when, where, and under whose contractual authority
Ready to see it in action?
Book a demo or tell us about your needs.
“Monday morning, 30 new temps arrive at the gate. We’ve got names on a list from the agency. Half the time, the person doesn’t match the name. We wave them through anyway because we’ve got orders to ship.”— Shift Manager, distribution centre
Common questions.
Certifyd is designed for speed. Each verification takes 30 seconds. Workers register once — their device-bound identity persists across all assignments. When they arrive at a new site, verification confirms their identity, agency membership, and site authorisation instantly. There’s no paperwork, no forms, no manual data entry. The system scales linearly: 10 workers take 5 minutes, 100 workers can be processed by multiple managers simultaneously.
The hiring employer. Even when workers are sourced through agencies, the business operating the warehouse bears legal responsibility for right-to-work verification. Under the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, civil penalties of up to £60,000 per illegal worker apply. The Fair Work Agency (from April 2026) will have enhanced inspection powers. Certifyd creates tamper-proof verification records that demonstrate compliance for every worker on every shift.
Yes. Each agency registers as a separate Organisation on Certifyd and manages their own workers as members. When a worker arrives at the warehouse, the system verifies their identity and confirms which agency dispatched them and whether their assignment is active. The warehouse gets a unified verification record regardless of which agency supplied the worker.
A worker’s Certifyd identity persists across all assignments. When they return to a site they’ve worked at before, verification is the same 30-second process — but the system confirms their current assignment status and right-to-work eligibility in real time. Previous verification doesn’t carry forward automatically, because circumstances change. Each shift gets a fresh, current verification.
Explore more use cases.
Verify every warehouse worker before they start
Book a demo to see how Certifyd works for your team, or tell us about your verification needs and we'll get back to you within 24 hours.
Read: The Temp Worker Loophole