Head of Programme Management
Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: London Store Support Centre and Home, London, EC1M 6HA
Contract type: Secondment
Business area: Food Commercial
Closing date: 18 September 2025
Requisition ID: 400018235
Please note this will be an 18 months Fixed Term Contract (not 12 months as stated)
Why join us
Joining Sainsbury's as the Head of Programme Management means becoming a vital part of a dynamic and experienced team committed to driving impactful change within the Food Commercial division. You will have the opportunity to lead large-scale technology-led initiatives that shape the future ways of working, collaborating with senior leaders and stakeholders to deliver innovative solutions. With a focus on wellbeing, transparent communication, and a culture that values sharing ideas and celebrating successes, you will be empowered to lead with vision, inspire your team, and make a significant impact on the organisation's strategic goals.
What you'll do
As a Programme Manager at Sainsbury's, you will lead the delivery of an ambitious programme of work within the Food Commercial Change portfolio, overseeing the complex delivery of interdependent initiatives and ensuring coordination and engagement with stakeholders across the business. You will take a structured and organised approach to programme delivery, validating principles, coordinating workstream outputs, facilitating key decisions, and ensuring robust governance over the programme. Working directly with senior leaders, you will play a critical role in workstreams to bring new thinking, challenge the status quo, and identify opportunities for improvement. Your role will also involve influencing senior stakeholders from various business areas, managing risks, issues, and dependencies, as well as providing inspirational, supportive, and empowering leadership to your team and colleagues through clear communication and strategic thinking.
Who you are
You are a seasoned leader with extensive experience in driving technology-led change programmes within Commercial teams. Your strategic orientation, coupled with a hypothesis-led problem-solving approach, enables you to navigate complex challenges and deliver impactful solutions. With your exceptional stakeholder management skills, deep industry knowledge, and ability to inspire and develop colleagues, you play a crucial role in shaping the future ways of working for the Food Commercial division, driving innovation, and fostering a culture of collaboration and excellence.
Essential Criteria
- Proven experience in driving SAP technology-led change programmes within large Commercial teams.
- Demonstrable strategic orientation and hypothesis-led problem-solving approach.
- Exceptional stakeholder management skills and experience at all levels and deep industry knowledge.
- Ability to inspire and develop colleagues with leadership/line management experience, fostering a culture of collaboration and excellence.
- Experience in managing risks, issues, and dependencies within complex programmes.
We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new — whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them: Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to save 10% on your shopping online and instore at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat, and we regularly increase the discount to 15% at points during the year. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 65% of salary, depending on how we perform (in cash and shares). Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy up to an additional week's holiday, and we provide private healthcare. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, salary advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. You'll also receive a company car cash allowance unless you are going to travel 10,000 business miles in your role, then you'll be able to choose a car. And if you ever need it there is also an employee assistance programme. Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave. Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).
