Category Manager

Carlsberg Group; Hemel Hempstead; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 75,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Monthly product allowance

Private Medical options

Life Assurance

Company bonus scheme

24/7 GP services

Enhanced pension contribution

High street discounts

Job summary

Carlsberg Britvic is seeking a Category Manager to drive growth by translating strategy into executable category plans across beer and soft drinks. You’ll develop relationships with major retailers, lead range and space initiatives, and turn insights into measurable commercial actions.

Based in Hemel Hempstead with responsibility for customer locations as required, the role anchors on delivering robust category plans, improving distribution and shopper reach, and mentoring junior team members in

Qualifications

• Well-versed in category management frameworks with strong command of space and range principles.
• Able to synthesise insights from syndicated and shopper data to create actionable plans.
• Understands financial levers and how to optimise them through customer planning and negotiation.
• Skilled at presenting ideas clearly to internal and external stakeholders; credible with customers.
• Comfortable leading projects and coaching junior team members; cross-functional collaboration.

Responsibilities

• Lead the channels/customer category agenda and maximise today while unlocking tomorrow.
• Establish strategic relationships with key customer stakeholders and act as a trusted category authority.
• Translate consumer trends into strategy and drive category growth with retailers.
• Align range and space targets and measure progress across the business cycle.
• Develop category selling stories and tools; create customer immersions to drive adoption of strategies.
• Deliver category initiatives, trials, and collaborations with customers (fixturisation, category relays).
• Collaborate with Insights, Strategy, Sales, Marketing to embed category thinking in planning and execution.

Skills

Category management

Space & range planning

Data analysis (Nielsen/IRI)

Stakeholder communication

Project leadership

FMCG industry experience

JDA familiarity

Tools

JDA

Job description

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Posting Date: 30 Sept 2026

Location: Hemel Hempstead, GB

Entity / company: Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company

Category Manager

Job Title: Category Manager

Location: Hemel Hempstead and Customer locations as required

Job Length: Permanent

Competitive Salary with extensive benefits :

• Monthly product allowance – alcoholic & non-alcoholic options available
• Private Medical options
• Life Assurance
• Company bonus scheme
• Access to 24/7 GP services
• Enhanced pension contribution
• Access to a range of high street discounts

Carlsberg Britvic is the largest multi-beverage supplier in the UK and is home to some of the most iconic and popular beers & soft drinks, including Carlsberg Danish Pilsner, 1664, Poretti and Brooklyn to ale favourites such as Hobgoblin and Wainwright. For soft drinks, Carlsberg Britvic’s brands include J2O, Robinsons, Tango and London Essence along with the licence rights to the Pepsi portfolio in the UK including Pepsi MAX, 7UP, poppi, Lipton Iced Tea and Rockstar Energy.

With a strong national footprint, the Carlsberg Britvic business includes 5 production facilities and 16 logistics depot’s servicing customers up and down the UK. As these two historical businesses have come together, the one common goal remains, and that is ensuring our people succeed.

About the role:

Following the creation of Carlsberg Britvic in 2025, 2026 is a critical year as we move from integration into execution — building momentum as a total drinks powerhouse across Beer and Soft Drinks. With a broad portfolio of leading brands and an Off Trade business delivering over £1.4bn net revenue, our opportunity is to unlock sustainable category growth with our retail partners, win space, improve distribution and bring more shoppers into our brands across more moments.

As an integral part of Carlsberg Britvic’s commercial growth engine, the Category Manager plays a pivotal role in translating strategy into execution. You’ll act as the commercial lynchpin between customer-specific insight, brand opportunities, and in-outlet activation. By developing collaborative relationships with retailers and internal partners, you will lead the delivery of robust category plans, identify growth levers, and help shape customer agendas that elevate Carlsberg Britvic’s brands and enhance our standing as a trusted partner to our customers.

You will lead the delivery of robust customer category plans, identifying growth levers across range, space, distribution, availability, rate of sale and in-store/online execution. Working closely with Sales, Category Strategy, Insights, Marketing and Commercial Operations, you will help shape retailer conversations, influence commercial priorities and ensure our category thinking translates into measurable business outcomes.

Role Responsibilities:

Lead the channels/customer category agenda ‘maximising today, and unlocking tomorrow’

• Establish and nurture strategic relationships with key customer stakeholders, positioning Carlsberg Britvic as a trusted category authority. Leverage thought leadership to co-create impactful solutions that enhance category performance and drive measurable improvements in external evaluations, including the Advantage Group Survey
• Lead the translation of consumer, shopper, and market trends into strategy, identifying where Carlsberg Britvic can drive category growth and gain competitive advantage.
• Set the direction and lead the team to align against the range and space targets and regularly measure progress against this, effectively managing messages through the business cycle
• Build strategic partnerships with key customer contacts, acting as the voice of the category and embedding Carlsberg Britvic’s thought leadership and leading to delivery of solutions to influence external measure of category success with improved results in the Advantage Group Survey.
• Lead the execution of your customer/channel category roadmap through range reviews and identifying category initiatives to maximise point of purchase outcomes enabling us to maximise range, primary space, secondary location, availability and macro space, in outlet and online
• Develop relevant category selling stories and tools and lead the development of customer immersions designed to engage customers and influence them to implement category solutions & strategies
• Lead for and manage the delivery of category building initiatives and trials with customers e.g. fixturisation, cross category, category relays
• Lead strategic agendas across hot topics such as health and wellness, sustainability, DRS (deposit return scheme) and HFSS (high fat salt sugar legislation) and provide the customer with a category point of view.
• Help mentor Category Executives, supporting capability development
• Support team culture grounded in collaboration, excellence, and performance.
• Champion continuous improvement and shared learning across the broader function.
• Put in place a development plan to improve your standards everyday
• Champion the power of category to other functions upskilling category capability and understanding to drive a greater impact
• Partner with Insights, Category Strategy, Sales, and Brand/Channel operations teams to ensure category thinking is embedded in brand planning and commercial execution.
• Lead inputs into business cases across NPD and EPD with account level information on category and customer marketing opportunities where required.
• Evaluate the impact of actions taken & ensure that learnings feed into future business planning.
• Represent category leadership on steering groups, channel forums, and leadership meetings.
• Set, track, and evaluate performance against space, range and distribution targets aligned to our range & merchandising blueprints.
• Translate insight from results into future-facing planning recommendations and continuous improvement.
• Manage the allocated category development budget against agreed customer data contracts and research projects.

Experience and Key Attributes:

• Well-versed in category management frameworks with strong command of space and range principles.
• Able to synthesise insights from syndicated and shopper data (e.g. Nielsen, IRI, loyalty platforms) to create compelling action plans.
• Understands key financial levers and how to optimise them through customer planning and negotiation.
• Skilled at presenting ideas clearly to both internal and external stakeholders; credible in front of customers.
• Comfortable leading projects and coaching junior team members; effective at bringing cross-functional teams together.
• Passionate about Carlsberg Britvic’s portfolio and how brands contribute to solving category and shopper needs.
• Flexible and composed in a fast-paced environment; open to evolving business priorities and routes to market.
• Extensive experience in category, customer marketing, or commercial roles within FMCG or similar sectors.
• Track record of working directly with customers, ideally with exposure to retail or grocery channels.
• Familiarity with space planning tools (e.g., JDA) and customer insight platforms.

This is an exciting time to join our newly formed business – with their incredible individual history’s, innovation of products and some of the UK’s most iconic brands, Carlsberg Britvic strives to deliver the best service to our customers and consumers. We aim to make a difference, bringing together two diverse companies, our global reach enables opportunity, growth and a chance to work with some fantastic people.

We look forward to receiving your application.

Carlsberg Group: Brewing for a better today and tomorrow

For us success has always been in the diverse mix of our people, our beers and our brands. At Carlsberg, we want to recruit and develop people with a global mindset, cultural understanding, and international experience to ensure that our organization stays agile, inclusive and prepared for future growth. Only by acknowledging and harvesting from different perspectives and experiences, will we gain competitive advantage and leverage the effect of diversity for business growth. Carlsberg aims to create equal access to opportunity regardless of social identity, and we encourage everyone to apply regardless of gender, nationality, race, religion or any other characteristics protected by law.