Join Whitaker & West

Why work with us

• Four day week. Standard. No expectation that anyone replies on a fifth.
• Open books. The whole team sees the P&L every quarter.
• Pay above market. No commission, no quota, no incentive to upsell. Salary bands are published internally.
• Generous leave. 32 days plus public holidays, plus a sabbatical at five years.
• An allowance for the wardrobe. 60% off list, no quantity cap, plus a piece of the team's choice each year.
• Travel where it matters. Mill visits, atelier weeks, the occasional photography trip. We pay for the train, the bed, and dinner.
• Pension. 8% employer contribution, fully matched.

Open roles

Five permanent positions, listed below. Apply by writing to hello@whitakerwest.com with the role name in the subject.

Atelier Buyer

Yorkshire / hybrid · permanent · full time, four days · £55,000 to £72,000

Second pair of eyes on every piece we consider, alongside Eleanor. The day to day mixes mill visits in the North of England, fittings on samples, conversations with the workshops in Bergamo and Almansa, and writing buy sheets that are accurate to the gram.

Looking for: five to ten years buying or merchandising for a tailor, a heritage brand, or a small house multi brand boutique. A working knowledge of cloth weights, finishes, and how to tell good from very good by hand. A driving licence and an appetite for early trains.

Apply: hello@whitakerwest.com

Wardrobe Advisor (two posts)

London, Marylebone · permanent · full time, four days · £42,000 to £55,000

Customers don't shop here the way they shop most places. They write, they call, they come in for an hour. The advisor's job is to learn a wardrobe; its gaps, its standards, its existing pieces, and quietly help fill it over years rather than visits.

Looking for: three to seven years on a tailor's shop floor, in a heritage menswear room, or as a private styling assistant. Handwriting that customers will keep. Patience to remember what someone wore last March without making them feel watched.

Apply: hello@whitakerwest.com

Editorial & Storytelling Lead

London / hybrid · permanent · full time, four days · £58,000 to £72,000

You'll write the house's voice; product copy, journal entries, customer correspondence templates, the occasional small print run. Reports to James, works closely with photography and the buying team. Bar is unhurried, exact, occasionally dry.

Looking for: a portfolio of long form writing for a heritage brand, a thoughtful magazine, or a tailor. The instinct to delete adjectives. A sense of when one well placed sentence is worth more than a paragraph.

Apply: hello@whitakerwest.com

Marketing Lead

London / hybrid · permanent · full time, four days · £65,000 to £85,000

You'll own how the house reaches new customers without ever sounding like one. CRM and email programme, partnerships with thoughtful publications, the occasional considered campaign, and the analytics underneath all of it. Reports to James, works alongside Editorial, and is trusted to say no to things that don't fit.

Looking for: seven to twelve years building marketing programmes for a heritage brand, a hospitality group, a publisher, or a small house in another category where restraint is the point. Comfortable with both narrative and a spreadsheet. Familiar with email platforms, paid search, paid social as a small lever, and the kind of measurement that goes deeper than open rates. Allergic to growth hacks.

Looking out for: superlatives, FOMO mechanics, urgency banners, anything that asks the customer to hurry. None of that lives here.

Apply: hello@whitakerwest.com

Quality Steward

Northamptonshire · permanent · full time, four days · £38,000 to £48,000

Every piece that comes off a workshop bench passes through this role before it ships. Inwards inspection, returns triage, and the small repair workshop; buttons, cuffs, soles, the occasional re line. Hands matter more than the CV.

Looking for: a tailoring or cobbler's apprenticeship, or equivalent time on a workshop bench. The eye to spot a poorly set buttonhole at arm's length. A workspace at home where things get repaired rather than replaced.

Apply: hello@whitakerwest.com

Freelance & rotating

We work with a small rotation of photographers, set builders, and models for our editorial photography (homepage, lookbooks, product). Three or four short shoots a year. We pay properly. If your work fits (quiet, considered, daylight, no bounce), please introduce yourself: hello@whitakerwest.com.

Don't see your role?

If you would suit the house but not a role above, please write anyway. We hold letters on file with permission and write back when something changes. Address it to hello@whitakerwest.com, subject “Speculative”, and tell us in a paragraph or two how you'd be useful.

How we hire

1. A short letter and CV by email. A paragraph or two, no template, no buzzwords.
2. A phone call if we think there's a fit. About thirty minutes.
3. An in person conversation at the Marylebone room or wherever the role lives, with a small piece of paid work attached (a buy sheet, an editorial brief, a marketing plan, a repair) appropriate to the role.
4. An offer or a no. We reply either way, in writing.

We do not use recruiters. We don't ask for cover letters in any particular format. We don't run aptitude tests. We have never asked a candidate to prepare a pitch deck and don't intend to start.

James & Eleanor