GM Commercial Programme Manager
Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: London Store Support Centre and Home, London, EC1M 6HA
Contract type: Permanent
Business area: Sainsbury's Commercial & Sustainability
Closing date: 31 July 2026
Requisition ID: 400069488
The GM Commercial Programme Manager supports the delivery of General Merchandise priorities and business change activity. Working across Commercial, Category Planning, Retail Operations, Property, Store Planning and wider business functions, the role helps coordinate programmes and initiatives, ensuring plans are organised, communicated and delivered effectively.
Following the successful implementation of the GM Reset programme, the role will support the ongoing development of the GM proposition through space planning, category transformation, blueprint evolution and future investment activity. This includes maintaining programme plans, tracking progress, coordinating stakeholders and problem solving to ensure successful delivery.
The role works closely with the Director of GM, Heads of Buying, Category Planning teams and key business partners to support business priorities and enable effective execution across stores.
What You'll Do
- Support the planning and delivery of GM projects and transformation initiatives, helping to ensure objectives, timelines and dependencies remain on track.
- Maintain programme plans, actions, risks and key milestones to provide visibility and accountability across business teams.
- Coordinate cross-functional meetings and working groups, tracking actions and supporting progress against agreed plans.
- Support the continued development and implementation of the GM Space Strategy and GM Blueprint across store formats.
- Track programme progress and identify risks, issues and dependencies, escalating where appropriate.
- Prepare programme updates, presentations, business cases and supporting materials for stakeholders and governance forums.
- Support post-implementation reviews and benefit tracking to assess programme outcomes and identify learning opportunities.
- Work closely with the Director of GM, Heads of Buying and Category Planning teams to support the delivery of key business priorities.
- Provide analysis, insights and recommendations to support strategic decision-making across GM priorities and programmes.
- Maintain strong relationships with key stakeholders across the business to support programme delivery and effective collaboration.
- Develop briefing materials, presentations, implementation guidance and communications to support colleagues through change.
- Own and maintain team systems, documentation and SharePoint resources.
What You Need to Know and Show
- Experience in programme coordination, project management or business change within a commercial, retail or operational environment.
- Experience working with multiple stakeholders and supporting the delivery of cross-functional projects.
- Strong organisational and planning skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities simultaneously.
- Strong relationship-building and communication skills, with confidence working across a broad range of stakeholders.
- Ability to organise information, analyse issues and translate business requirements into clear delivery plans.
- Commercial awareness and an understanding of how business decisions impact customers, colleagues and financial performance.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with excellent attention to detail.
- Strong communication, presentation and storytelling skills.
- Experience using Microsoft 365 applications including Excel, PowerPoint, Teams and SharePoint.
- Knowledge of Sainsbury's Commercial, Retail or Category Planning processes would be advantageous.
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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).
