Business Planning Lead
Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: London Store Support Centre and Home, London, EC1M 6HA
Contract type: Permanent
Business area: Finance & Business Development
Closing date: 22 May 2026
Requisition ID: 400060252
We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. For a FTSE business, we move incredibly fast. When we’re not handling projects, we’re helping all corners of the wider group with what they’re trying to achieve. And around here, you can see the results of your work as soon as you walk into a store, which gives you a real sense of purpose and responsibility. Better still, the team around you will listen to your ideas and opinions, and you’ll have every chance to try something new. The sheer scale and complexity of our set-up means there’s always something else around the corner, and we’ll help and support you every step of the way. We’re trusted to get on with it. So get ready to make things happen here.
About the team
The Business Planning team sits within Business Strategy & Planning and plays a central role in enabling delivery of the transformation portfolio across the organisation. Working closely with change and transformation stakeholders, the team provides the plans, tools and governance that underpin successful delivery of business outcomes. This is a high‑profile, collaborative team that operates at pace, influences across multiple functions and continuously evolves how planning and delivery are approached.
More about the role
As a Business Planning Lead, you will be responsible for planning delivery across the Business Planning team and owning the creation and ongoing maintenance of change plans. You will lead the development of planning tools, templates and processes that support delivery of a complex and varied transformation portfolio, working closely with senior stakeholders across the business.
Day to day, you can expect to manage multiple workstreams, partner with change leads to shape and deliver plans, and use data and feedback to continuously improve Business Planning capability. This role requires confidence operating under pressure, providing expert advice on planning, engagement and measurement, and constructively challenging ways of working to drive better outcomes.
More about you
You will bring a demonstratable background in portfolio or project management, with experience coordinating multiple initiatives and adapting plans in response to changing priorities. Comfortable working in complex environments, you will be skilled at engaging a wide range of stakeholders and translating strategic objectives into clear, practical delivery plans.
You are proactive and solutions‑focused, with the confidence to take ownership and suggest new approaches. You value continuous improvement, actively seek feedback and use insight to improve tools, processes and outcomes. Strong communication and influencing skills enable you to build trusted relationships and operate credibly with stakeholders up to senior manager level.
Essential criteria
- Experience of portfolio management and / or project management
- Experience managing multiple projects, prioritizing, and responding quickly to changing situations.
- Experience of creating and delivering engagement plans – preferably in large, complex and multi-location organisations, operating in rapidly changing markets
- Experience in portfolio reporting, coordinating, and developing MI and dashboards to drive proactive decision making across different stakeholder groups and experience managing and developing Enterprise Portfolio tooling.
- Strong Microsoft Office skills – the ability to create an engaging presentation in PowerPoint and adept at using Excel to manage data (e.g. pivot tables, lookups)
- Excellent written and verbal communication, with good interpersonal and influencing 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).
