Head of Food & Beverage

Premier Inn; Houghton Regis; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual incentive up to 50%

Private healthcare up to family cover

Up to 10% matched pension

Sharesave Scheme

25 days holiday plus up to 5 extra

Discount on Premier Inn stays

Employee Assistance Programme

Job summary

Premier Inn is seeking a Head of Food & Beverage to lead end-to-end F&B strategy across a growing hotel estate. You will shape menus, drive operational excellence, and empower hotel teams with coaching and support to deliver at scale.

You'll bring a track record of transforming F&B in multi-site hospitality, strong commercial judgment, and the ability to partner with Operations, Procurement, Marketing and Finance to grow guest spend and margins.

Qualifications

• Experienced F&B leader with multi-site hospitality experience.
• Ability to drive strategic menus and propositions at scale.
• Strong commercial judgment and cross-functional collaboration.

Responsibilities

• Own and develop long-term F&B strategy across a growing hotel estate.
• Lead menu development and operational excellence initiatives.
• Coach hotel teams to deliver high-quality F&B at scale.
• Shape F&B promotion and guest experience across digital channels.
• Collaborate with Operations, Procurement, Marketing and Finance to grow margins.

Skills

F&B leadership

Strategic thinking

Cross-functional leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree in Hospitality or related field

Job description

For nearly 300 years, Whitbread has helped shape hospitality in the UK. We’ve evolved and adapted many times along the way and we’re entering another important chapter now – focusing our business around our hotels, with big ambitions for growth in the UK and Ireland.

But one thing isn’t changing: food and drink remains a huge part of the Premier Inn experience, enjoyed by millions of our guests every year. The question now is what that experience should look like in the future – what we serve, how we serve it and how we make it work brilliantly across a growing hotel estate.

That’s where our new Head of Food & Beverage comes in. This is a chance to lead our end-to-end F&B strategy and help create a simpler, stronger Premier Inn-led offer that takes everything we’ve learned from decades of serving guests and shaping what comes next.

What you’ll do:

• Own and develop our long-term F&B strategy, helping shape what a Premier Inn-led food and drink offer looks like.
• Lead the development of menus and propositions that respond to changing guest needs while being practical to deliver brilliantly at scale.
• Build and lead our new approach to F&B operational excellence, moving more capability into the field and giving hotel teams the coaching, skills and support they need to deliver brilliantly.
• Bring together food development and operations, from kitchen design and equipment through to systems and the successful introduction of new menus and initiatives.
• Shape how we bring our F&B offer to life for guests, from our promotional calendar and on‑site experience to how food and drink shows up across the Premier Inn digital journey.
• Use insight and strong commercial judgement to grow F&B performance, improving conversion, guest spend, menu contribution and margin.
• Lead and develop a multi‑disciplinary F&B team, while shaping the capability we’ll need for the future.

What you’ll bring:

• You’ll be an experienced F&B leader who understands what it takes to make great food and drink work across a large, multi‑site hospitality business.
• You’ll have led significant change before, whether that’s evolving menus, transforming an operating model or taking an F&B proposition in a new direction and you’ll be equally comfortable thinking strategically and getting close to how things actually work in hotels and kitchens.
• You’ll bring strong commercial judgement, an understanding of the levers that drive F&B performance and the ability to bring people with you across Operations, Procurement, Marketing, Finance and Property.
• Most importantly, you’ll see the opportunity that’s right here right now: to take an F&B business already serving millions of guests and help define what food and drink at Premier Inn looks like next.

Why you’ll love it here:

• Annual incentive up to 50%
• Private healthcare up to family cover
• Up to 10% matched pension
• Sharesave Scheme
• 25 days holiday plus the option to buy up to 5 additional days per year
• Up to 60% discount on Premier Inn stays
• Employee Assistance Programme

At Whitbread, we believe everyone is unique and there should be no barriers to entry and no limits to ambition. We’re committed to being an inclusive organisation that values diversity and welcomes applications whatever your background or situation. We’re also open to flexible working and, wherever possible, will try to support this.