Senior Forecasting Analyst
Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: London Store Support Centre and Home, London, EC1M 6HA
Contract type: Fixed-Term Assignment
Business area: Retail
Closing date: 14 October 2025
Requisition ID: 400024035
We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. As the link between sellers and buyers, retail and head office, our retail operations team is the cog that keeps things running. With teams focused on store facing, labour, transformation, online, delivery and contact centre work, we touch almost every part of the business. It’s an incredibly fast-paced environment where you need to pivot not just daily, but often hourly. So while we plan all we can, it’s vital that we all think outside our job descriptions and look to optimise and improve how we do everything. There’s also a real team ethos. After all, it’s people like you who are going to truly transform this part of the business.
Join one of the fastest-growing and most dynamic areas of Sainsbury’s, where you will support us in delivering an exceptional digital experience for all our customers through various ecommerce channels. You will play a crucial role in understanding and organising data, managing data-intensive operational processes, and applying statistical modelling techniques to support our business in achieving rapid sales growth.
What You Will Do:
- Interpret and investigate unstructured business requests in the light of technical understanding and the available data to formulate data analysis solutions with clearly articulated objectives
- Working with peers build re-useable mathematical models to promote insight and understanding of the ecommerce business
- Work with colleagues across the Sainsbury’s Food, Argos and Clothing brands to ensure the right data feeds are leveraged for online forecasting and optimisation
- Take ownership of the final operational implementation of new data feeds and validated models for operational purposes in our continuously evolving forecasting and optimisation systems.
- Maintain awareness of our evolving business needs from budget setting through to short-term optimisation across all ecommerce propositions, adapting our operational systems as required.
- Where necessary, support the junior forecasting analyst with day-to-day operations
- Undertake ad hoc analyses to interrogate questions that are not captured by our current models and systems, addressing emergent issues in our fast-paced business.
What You Need to Know and Show:
- SQL experience: This is essential for the role. Candidates must have proven experience with SQL.
- R or Python coding languages: Strongly desired. While we will consider candidates without this experience, it is highly preferred.
- Forecasting experience: Essential. Bonus points if you have experience with "time series forecasting."
- Presenting data to non-analytical audiences: Essential. You must be able to translate technical insights into actionable plans and present them confidently to various stakeholders.
- A strong analytical/quantitative background (e.g., statistics, mathematics, physics, engineering, economics, operational research).
- Proven experience in analysing data, working with data systems, and developing models in a corporate environment.
- Significant experience and proven aptitude for data wrangling and data engineering.
- Experience developing data systems with relational databases and, ideally, other newer technologies.
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 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 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, interest free car loan of up to £10k, 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).
