Trade Compliance Analyst Review

I worked as a Trade Compliance Analyst at Cummins Inc., supporting three UK sites across engine and turbo operations. My main responsibility was Inward Processing discharge collecting and assessing Proof of Export documentation against VAT Notice 703, and reconciling invoices, packing lists, export declarations and transport documents against each other. I also managed HMRC C285 duty reclaims end to end and chased preferential origin documentation from suppliers under DCTS and the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Day to day this meant liaising with freight forwarders across Turkey, Germany and the Netherlands, our customs broker, and internal shipping and sourcing teams.

Yes , I owned the Proof of Export workstream for a full site and managed HMRC C285 duty reclaims end to end, including direct correspondence with HMRC. I dealt independently with freight forwarders, customers and our customs broker across several countries. Senior colleagues were there for ambiguous points, but the day-to-day decisions were mine

I came in with no customs knowledge and left able to interpret VAT Notice 703, the UK Trade Tariff and preferential origin rules under DCTS and the EU-UK TCA with confidence. I learnt Power BI from scratch to build a supplier documentation dashboard, and got much better at professional communication, particularly chasing documents from external forwarders who had no obligation to reply to me. The biggest development was judgement: knowing when evidence was genuinely sufficient, and when a low-value case wasn't worth pursuing.

Support was good without being restrictive . I had a lead analyst to go to on technical questions and a line manager tracking my workstreams, plus a weekly team meeting where I could raise things informally. I was left to get on with the day-to-day, but there was always someone to check with when something was genuinely ambiguous.

Relaxed and collaborative

I enjoyed it a lot

Yes