Category Planner - Grocery Drinks
Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: London Store Support Centre and Home, London, EC1M 6HA
Contract type: Fixed-Term Assignment
Business area: Sainsbury's Commercial & Sustainability
Closing date: 28 July 2026
Requisition ID: 400072287
Joining the Category Planning team at Sainsbury's means being part of a team that is always one step ahead on delivering exceptional propositions to our customers. We are looking for a Category Planner to join our Grocery Drinks team on a 12 month Fixed Term Contract.
As a Category Planner for Grocery Drinks, you'll have the opportunity to collaborate and work alongside various stakeholders, both external from our supply base, and internal across the business, to plan and to execute activation plans that maximise our category's impact. With your relationship building skills, your natural flare for efficient planning and execution, and a drive and motivation to deliver for our customers, you'll play a vital role in shaping and improving our activation strategy in Grocery Drinks.
At Sainsbury's, we value work-life balance and provide a flexible working environment that empowers our colleagues to excel in their roles while enjoying a fulfilling personal life. Join us to make a difference and be part of a team that thrives on providing the best for our customers.
What you'll do
- You will build, lead and drive the overall activation strategy and plan for the Grocery Drinks category.
- You will collaborate with various stakeholders, including Buyers, Supply Chain, Marketing, Nectar 360, BU Operations, Formats, Property and our Supply Base, to deliver activation plans and propositions that showcase value, inspiration and innovation to our customers.
- You will own the end-to-end process and timelines, effectively communicate the retail execution of our activation plans. and through meticulous attention to detail, ensure best practises and first-time delivery.
- You will be ambitious, creative and bold with your plans, and challenge the status quo of what we do and how we do it, with the aim of delivering best in class activations. You’ll use your relationship building and influencing skills to communicate and gain support for your ambitious plans.
- Your goal is to lead the evolution of the Grocery Drinks activation strategy while building a strong insight and knowledge base to enhance and grow our capabilities.
Who you are
- You are a proactive and strategic thinker with a keen eye for identifying opportunities and making effective decisions in a fast-paced retail environment.
- With your solid understanding of retail, customer insights, and buying or flexible space planning knowledge, you play a pivotal role in delivering the overall category plan.
- Your exceptional relationship building, project management and analytical skills will enable you to effectively manage timelines, optimise activation space, and drive improvements through data-driven insights.
- With excellent communication and influencing abilities, you collaborate closely with stakeholders across the organisation and build strong working relationships to ensure the successful implementation and communication of activation plans.
Your strong sense of initiative, problem-solving skills, and drive for process improvement contribute to the continuous evolution of the Beers, Wines, and Spirits activation strategy, ultimately enhancing the customer experience and achieving our corporate goals.
Essential Criteria
- Solid understanding of commercial, retail and customers - buying or promotions and flexible space knowledge is an advantage
- Strong analytical skills - turning data into insight, problem solving, and developing recommendations to present to stakeholders
- Excellent communication and influencing skills – building great working relationships and providing support and challenge to stakeholders at different levels
- Ambitious and motivated – takes initiative to solve problems and improve processes, thinks independently & willing to learn and grow, driven to succeed
- Excellent project management skills - thrives on planning, prioritising, and coordinating - able to drive timelines and identify risks and opportunities
- Robust Excel and PowerPoint 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: 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.
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.
Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).
