Since 1979, Gambit Schoolwear has supplied schools across the UK directly with British-made uniforms no middlemen, no retail markup, just factory-direct pricing built on nearly half a century of manufacturing expertise.
We remain a family-run business at heart. Our founders built Gambit on decades of technical and marketing experience gained within the textile industry, launching the company in their 50s and doing so in the teeth of the 1980s recession.
That grounding in real manufacturing knowledge, combined with the resilience it took to start a business against that backdrop, has shaped how we’ve operated ever since: carefully, reliably, and always hands-on.
Over 40 years on, that approach hasn’t changed. What has changed is the scale of what we can do under one roof.
Everything is manufactured in-house at our factory in Leicester, in the heart of Britain’s historic textile manufacturing region. Embroidery, screen-printing and transfer-printing all happen on site, giving us direct control over quality, turnaround and most importantly to the schools we work with deadlines.
We’ve hit every back-to-school delivery date for over four decades, including the years that took weekends and nights to make it happen. That track record isn’t an accident; it’s a standard we hold ourselves to.
British manufacturing isn’t just part of our story it’s central to how we do business. It means shorter supply chains, greater accountability, and production we can stand behind. It’s also why we’re selective about which imported brands we work with, and where they’re made.
We supply directly to schools and authorised Parents’ Associations in bulk. We don’t operate as a retail business, and we don’t sell to individual customers.