Head of Central Trading & BI – Argos

Sainsbury's Limited; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Colleague discount & high street perks

Pensions & life cover

Performance bonus up to 65% of salary

Private healthcare

Job summary

Sainsbury's is seeking a Head of Central Trading & BI – Argos to lead a multidisciplinary Finance and Data team, partnering with the Commercial Leadership Team to drive performance and strategic decision-making. You will own budgeting, forecasting and long-term planning, delivering robust financial insights and value through automation.

As a senior finance leader, you will shape strategic direction, manage resources, and develop talent while navigating change.

Qualifications

• Professionally qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA, CIMA or equivalent).
• Proven experience partnering senior leaders and providing financial insight.
• Demonstrable knowledge of retail trading performance and cost-to-serve drivers.
• Experience budgeting, forecasting and long-term planning with risk assessment.

Responsibilities

• Provide strategic leadership across Central Trading Finance and Finance BI.
• Lead budgeting, forecasting and long-term planning activities.
• Deliver executive reporting and performance narratives for commercial leadership.
• Drive continuous improvement in value of Finance through data, automation and self-service insights.

Skills

ACA/ACCA/CIMA or equivalent

Commercial finance leadership

Education

ACA/ACCA/CIMA or equivalent qualification

Job description

Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: London Store Support Centre and Home, London, EC1M 6HA
Hours: Full time
Contract type: Permanent
Business area: Finance & Transformation
Closing date: 2 November 2026
Requisition ID: 400091103

We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you here at Sainsbury’s. For a FTSE business, we move incredibly fast. When we’re not leading projects, we’re supporting teams across the wider group to achieve their goals. And here, you can see the impact of your work as soon as you walk into a store, giving you a real sense of purpose and responsibility. Better still, the team around you will listen to your ideas and opinions, and you’ll have every chance to try something new. The scale and complexity of our business mean there’s always something new to learn, and we’ll support you every step of the way. We’re trusted to get on with it. So get ready to make things happen.

Location: London, Coventry or Manchester Store Support Centre & Home – colleagues go into the office 2 days per week on average.

Joining Argos as the Head of Central Trading & BI – Argos presents a unique opportunity to lead a multidisciplinary team and drive strategic financial decision-making within a dynamic retail environment. As a key partner to the Commercial & Digital Leadership Team, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of the company by providing valuable insights, leading budgeting and forecasting efforts, and driving continuous improvement through innovation and data-driven solutions. With a focus on collaboration, leadership development, and leveraging cutting-edge technologies, this role offers the chance to make a significant impact and contribute to the sustainable growth and success of Argos.

What you’ll do

As the Head of Central Trading & BI – Argos, you will play a crucial role in providing strategic leadership and operational oversight across Central Trading Finance and Finance BI, partnering with the Argos Commercial Leadership team to drive performance improvement, manage risks, and identify growth opportunities. Leading a multidisciplinary team of Finance and Data managers, you will set strategic direction, allocate resources, and build capability to deliver quality commercial insights and decision support in areas such as sales, gross margin, profitability, and cost to serve. You will be responsible for budgeting, forecasting, and long-term planning, ensuring robust assumptions and integrated financial strategies, while owning executive reporting and performance narratives for Argos Commercial & Digital. Additionally, your role will involve driving continuous improvement in how Finance adds value through simplification, self-service insight, automation, and leveraging data and AI responsibly to enhance business outcomes.

Who you are

As the Head of Central Trading & BI – Argos, you are a seasoned finance professional with a strong track record of business partnering and influencing senior leaders in the retail industry. Your deep understanding of trading performance, market dynamics, and financial forecasting, combined with your strategic planning capabilities, allows you to provide valuable insights and recommendations to drive sustainable growth and improve performance. As an inspiring and inclusive leader, you excel in setting clear direction, developing talent, and navigating through ambiguity and change with resilience and courage. Your technical fluency in data analytics tools and emerging technologies enables you to lead teams in leveraging data and AI to drive innovation and deliver impactful results.

• Professionally qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA, CIMA or equivalent) with demonstrable experience operating in a commercial finance leadership role.
• Proven experience partnering senior business leaders, providing financial insight and challenge, and influencing strategic and operational decision-making.
• Demonstrable knowledge of retail trading performance, including sales, gross margin, stock management, profitability measures and cost-to-serve drivers.
• Experience leading budgeting, forecasting and long-term planning activities, including assessing commercial risks, opportunities and performance outcomes.
• Proven leadership experience managing and developing multi-disciplinary finance, data or analytics teams, including setting direction, prioritising resources and delivering business objectives.

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 65% of salary, depending on how we perform (in cash and shares).

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, 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. You'll also receive a company car cash allowance unless you are going to travel 10,000 business miles in your role, then you'll be able to choose a car. 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).