Head of Commercial Planning
Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: London Store Support Centre and Home, London, EC1M 6HA
Contract type: Permanent
Business area: Food Commercial
Closing date: 17 December 2025
Requisition ID: 400042480
Why join us
Joining Sainsbury's as the Head of Commercial Planning offers a unique opportunity to lead and shape major commercial processes within a renowned multi-channel retail organisation. With a focus on innovation, compliance, and commercial excellence, this role provides the chance to develop bold strategies, drive operational value, and foster a high-performing team across multiple sites. By championing supplier relationship management, leading the implementation of major commercial processes, and ensuring regulatory compliance, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of commercial operations while fostering a culture of excellence and empowerment within the team.
What you'll do
As the Head of Commercial Planning at Sainsbury's, you will play a key role in maximising commercial and operational value by defining bold strategies, creating best-in-class supplier relationship management processes and tools, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements, and supporting the ongoing Core Commercial Transformation programme. You will lead critical commercial processes across ranging and pricing, act as the business SME for supplier management tools, coordinate cross-category supplier engagement communications, and drive operational excellence in a fast-changing commercial and regulatory environment. Additionally, you will be responsible for creating and leading a high-performing team across multiple sites, fostering a culture of compliance, responding to new regulatory challenges, and implementing internal audit actions. Your leadership, commercial acumen, analytical skills, and ability to drive major change activities will be essential in delivering successful outcomes in a dynamic and challenging environment.
Who you are
You are a seasoned senior leader with a proven track record of driving significant commercial delivery and operational excellence. With strong commercial acumen and analytical skills, you excel in balancing customer benefits, commercial return, and operational efficiency. Your ability to develop, communicate, and lead major change initiatives, coupled with your experience in process management and optimisation, positions you as a strategic leader capable of driving continuous improvement and delivering impactful business outcomes in a fast-changing regulatory environment. Your leadership, judgement, and influencing skills enable you to attract and develop diverse talent, foster a culture of compliance, and inspire confidence among colleagues and stakeholders, ultimately shaping the future vision and success of the Commercial Planning function.
Essential Criteria
- Proven track record of current significant commercial delivery and operational excellence within a complex, large, multi-channel food retail organisation
- Demonstrated current senior leadership experience, including building and leading high-performing teams
- Strong commercial acumen and advanced analytical skills, with a high level of organisational detail – experience in delivering through the detail is a must
- Experience in developing, communicating, and leading major change initiatives, particularly in process management, optimisation, and regulatory compliance.
- Excellent high level influencing, judgement skills and experience at all levels of stakeholder management, including up to Board Level
- Proven experience and proficient in managing a diverse range of workload
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 get 10% off at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat after 4 weeks. This increases to 15% off at Sainsbury’s every Friday and Saturday and 15% off at Argos every pay day. 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 additional 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, pay 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, you will also be eligible for private healthcare too.
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).
