A shipping gint has declared its diverting vessels away from UK ports due to a build-up of cargo.
Maersk has started rerouting its container ships away from Felixstowe, the UK's largest commercial port.
Instead, the ship will unload elsewhere in Europe before using smaller vessels to get deliveries to the UK, according to the Financial Times.
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The head of global ocean network at Maersk, Lars Mikael Jensen, said the HGV driver shortage has impacted the time containers have to unload and picked up.
He said: “We had to stop operations on a ship because there was nowhere to discharge the containers,” he said.
“Felixstowe is among the top two or three worst-hit terminals.
“We are having to deviate some of the bigger ships away from Felixstowe and relay some of the smaller ships for the cargo.
“We did it for a little while over the summer and now we’re starting to do it again.”
Felixstowe deals with 36 per cent of UK freight container volumes - the backlog has added to concerns how UK industry will cope during the Christmas period.
This could also mean that retailers are forced to prioritise what they ship to deal with the congestion, according to Mr Jensen.
A key factor affecting UK ports is the shortage of lorry drivers.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the shortage was "absolutely foreseeable" while on a visit to an HGV training centre near Oldham.
Speaking to broadcasters, he said: “We need to get drivers back on the road just as quickly as possible because we’ve seen already the impact on fuel in recent weeks.
“Now we’re seeing the impact in deliveries and this is going to go on for weeks and months into Christmas.
“And I think everybody will be saying we need to do something about it, we need to get that training in place.
“But for heaven’s sake, this was predicted, it was absolutely foreseeable, and the Government hasn’t responded.
“We knew when we left the EU that we would need to have a plan B in relation to drivers, we knew because of the pandemic there would be an impact, and here we are in the middle of a crisis and we’ve got, what? A Prime Minister who’s missing in action.”
Other sites around the world are also suffering from significant delays.
Particular issues are being seen in China and East Asia, where pandemic restrictions and poor weather have negatively impacted shipping.
