Our Story

From humble beginnings to the global company we are today, we’ve been on an incredible journey, but the best is yet to come.

In 1937, J H Waring and P M Sebestyen established a company called Radiospares Limited, supplying radio repair shops with spare parts. The business began selling electronic components in 1954 and rebranded as
RS Components in 1971.



For over 80 years, we have been providing products and solutions to engineers, making it easy for our customers to do business and saving them time and money.

Today, we are a global omni-channel solutions partner for industrial customers and suppliers who are involved in designing, building or maintaining industrial equipment and facilities.

We aim to offer our customers unrivalled choice of product technologies, solve problems with innovative solutions and deliver a world-class customer experience.

We stock more than 700,000 industrial and electronic products, sourced from over 2,500 leading suppliers and provide a wide range of value-added solutions to over one million customers.

With operations in 32 countries, we trade through multiple channels and ship over 50,000 parcels a day.



Our Purpose

Our purpose is ‘making amazing happen’. We plan to inspire a more sustainable world through education and innovative solutions that improve lives.Through a range of projects and activities we’re supporting the engineers of today and tomorrow, ensuring that they have all they require – from a broad product range to a number of core services that help to add real value to our customers.


We have an unrivalled focus on the customer and their needs across the design, build and maintain lifecycle. We’ve collated key products and industry themes with a laser focus on addressing customer problems and offering solutions to help them save time and money.

Through our Discovery Hub we have collated a wide range of articles to help you get the most from your equipment, applications and projects. We’ve also brought to life a selection of interesting facts and figures covering a wide range of topics, through engaging infographics. Visit our guides page where you can download all of our latest guides and brochures.

For procurement professionals, we have created Connected Thinking to provide valuable insight and expertise to both businesses and individuals involved in the sectors we support. RS doesn’t simply supply customers with products; we collaborate with organisations to help identify better working practices that will help them to achieve sustainable efficiencies.

We have a vision to inspire, nurture and empower the next generations of socially and environmentally responsible engineers, by delighting education providers with innovative blended learning solutions like technical learning, soft skills development, projects, volunteering and community activity. We want to enable the next generation to make a positive difference in society and change the world.

We’ve also created a number of video profiles that help to tell the inspiring stories of our customers, our partners and our employees through our ‘for the inspired’ hub which explores the art of the possible.


 

Our Services

We’re more than a one-stop show for all of your industrial and electronics product needs; our range of services and solutions is second to none.

From same day delivery to procurement solutions, find a range of helpful services to increase productivity, save you time and money.

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Our Partners

We partner with over 2,500 globally recognised suppliers who help bring the latest industrial and electronics products to market, to support the needs of our customers.

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Our People

Our people help us do what we do and we’re immensely proud to have an incredibly talented and diverse workforce around the globe focused on delivery excellence for our customer and partners. To find out more about the role we play, or how you could join our company, check out our careers site.

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Our Own Brand

RS PRO is our own-brand product range of more than 80,000 high-quality, competitively priced industrial product and electronic components.

RS PRO offers customers a choice where the combination of quality, performance and price create exceptional value. All RS PRO products and components are backed by the RS Seal of Approval, representing leading industry standards for audit, inspection, test and certification.


Associated Brands

Focusing on single-board computing (SBC) and the internet of things (IoT), OKdo provides  end-to-end support for all SBC and IoT segments, spanning makers, entrepreneurs, industrial designers, educators and reseller partners. OKdo also brings SBC and IoT customers the latest products, solutions and ideas to inspire and enable them to create technology that makes life better.



Launched in 2010, DesignSpark is our online design community and resource centre for makers, students and design engineers. With a comprehensive range of free-of-charge software design tools, technical data and development resources, DesignSpark provides a platform for members to share their projects, opinions and connect with other engineers and students.