Recruitment Manager - Commercial and Retail Store Support Centre
Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: London Store Support Centre and Home, London, EC1M 6HA
Contract type: Permanent
Business area: Group HR
Closing date: 22 May 2026
Requisition ID: 400060364
Why join us
We are on an exciting journey to take Sainsbury’s to the ‘Next Level’ and this is an opportunity to be part of an ambitious team and organisation. You will play an important role in how we show up for and serve our customers every day, as well as supporting the delivery of our corporate outcomes and strategy. Joining our People Division as a recruitment leader you’ll be at the very forefront of one of the biggest workforces in the UK and play a pivotal role in recruiting the very best talent for our store support centre teams.
What you'll do
As a Recruitment Manager you will shape, drive and deliver the end-to-end recruitment operation and experience for our Commercial and Retail Store Support centre roles. Our large-scale makes this a multi-faceted role, ranging from the efficient day-to-day running of our recruitment service and evolving our candidate experiences, through to innovating our technologies to maximise the service we deliver.
Your responsibilities will include contributing to the strategic direction of the recruitment team, and key to your success will be your people leadership. By fostering a motivated and skilled team of dedicated Senior Recruiters, you will enable the delivery of high-quality recruits and customer satisfaction, optimise recruitment metrics, drive compliance and deliver return on recruitment investments.
Your focus will extend to promoting diversity and inclusion, analysing recruitment data and engaging with suppliers and third-party agencies. Moreover, you will contribute to the growth and development of your team and proactively advance your own knowledge, skills and commercial awareness in the recruitment market to establish yourself as a recruitment expert within Sainsbury’s.
Through networking, relationship management and external insight you’ll build a strong understanding of current and future talent requirements and play an important role in supporting talent plans and strategic resourcing requirements.
Who you are
A strategic thinker and leader with a hands-on approach and strong operational experience, who thrives in a creative & flexible environment and champions recruitment as one of the most impactful ways that a People team can impact an organisation and transform business outcomes. You are an action-orientated and adaptable individual with exceptional leadership and judgement and thrive on leading a high performing and engaged team.
You can balance a progressive and future focussed mindset with a practical and operational lens, and can effectively manage cross-functionally and drive the successful execution of recruitment projects and initiatives at scale. With your keen eye for detail, a proactive attitude and passion for working in a fast-paced team, you take accountability for driving a service that is efficient, professional, externally credible, and has our hiring managers, candidates and customers at the heart of the experience.
You have natural gravitas and significant experience working collaboratively with leadership teams, with the ability to be credible from Hiring Manager up to Departmental Director level. This allows you to effectively nurture and develop collaborative relationships with relevant Leadership Teams, Talent Partners, Hiring Managers, external suppliers and stakeholders to ensure that recruitment priorities and efforts are focused on the right way to deliver on the business requirements, keeping others well informed throughout the recruitment process.
Please note: This role is based out of our either our London or Manchester office, and in order to stay connected with the team, would require travel to the office at least once per week.
Essential criteria
- Recruitment experience and proven knowledge of recruitment best practice in the external market, including Diverse Talent Pooling and Market Mapping
- Evidence of driving performance of recruitment metrics and platforms including how to optimise existing systems as well as ability to leverage new and advanced technologies
- Demonstrated success in building and leading a high-performing team to deliver results at pace and meet internal and external customer expectations
- Proven experience of working in a fast paced and customer-centric environment and delivery of strategic projects from inception through to user adoption
- Excellent communication, collaboration and influencing skills, with the ability to build strong relationships across a large volume of stakeholders, hiring managers and external partners
- Strong commercial skills, balancing recruitment needs and risk with commercial necessity
- Demonstrate an analytical mindset with the ability to collect, analyse, and interpret data to drive decision making and continuous improvement for your business area
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 20% 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 additional holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, interest free car loan of up to £10k, 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. 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).
