Senior Merchandiser - Grocery Ops
Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: London Store Support Centre and Home, London, EC1M 6HA
Contract type: Fixed-Term Assignment
Business area: Food Commercial
Closing date: 06 November 2025
Requisition ID: 400029453
Some things haven’t changed since we opened our first store. Our commitment to delicious food at competitive prices, for one. But great merchandising always evolves. And when you join us, you’ll show us how.
What you’ll do
We’ll look to you to pass on everything you know as you help train Junior Merchandisers to deliver best in class planograms and live build presentations. You’ll be one of the first points of contact for issue escalation from our ranging and merchandising teams too, so the people side of the role will keep you busy.
The technical aspects will as well, as you carry out analysis to inform the creation of category merchandising principles, referencing a broad mix of sources. You’ll also create a library of standardised merchandising principles that are easy to understand, find and reference.
The role will see you work with categories to make sure that all planograms adhere to corporate and category merchandising principles. Throughout, you’ll be responsible for signing off complex merchandising plans and acting as a flexible resource whether it’s ad hoc projects, supporting planogram creation or championing corporate merchandising change programmes.
Who you are
You’ll need to draw on a good knowledge of merchandising software such as JDA, and an appreciation of a category’s bigger picture so that merchandising priorities can be managed effectively. Your broad understanding of how customers shop and navigate fixtures — and how we can make it easier — will be key.
You will need a flexible approach to divide your time between priority teams, and give junior merchandisers the support they need to grow and develop. And of course, you’ll always be mindful of retail health and safety principles so that planograms can be implemented right first time.
Essential Criteria
- Strong communication skills to clearly convey ideas and progress to a wide range of stakeholders including direct reports, peers, Range Analysts, Category Planners, and wider commercial teams.
- Leadership potential with the ability to motivate, coach, and develop junior merchandisers to deliver best-in-class planograms.
- Organisational capability to manage competing tasks, team resources, and deadline to keep track of workload peaks and priorities across the year
- Technical knowledge of space planning systems such as JDA or Blue Yonder, with a strong understanding of merchandising principles and best practices.
- Problem-solving mindset with a proactive approach to identifying and resolving challenges using a broad mix of sources.
- Commitment to continuous development by learning from past projects and refining skills.
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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 10% of salary, depending on how we perform. 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. 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. 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).
