Programme Manager (12 month Fixed Term Contract)

Retail; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 75,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Colleague discount

Pensions scheme

Life cover

Performance bonus up to 20%

Job summary

Sainsbury’s is hiring a Programme Manager to lead the delivery of transformation across our Retail & Digital division, focusing on Customer Service and Contact Centre operations. You’ll work with the Head of Account Management and senior stakeholders to coordinate multiple workstreams and ensure measurable benefits for customers, colleagues and the wider organisation.

You’ll bring structure, pace and clarity to complex initiatives, manage plans, risks and dependencies, and help teams adopt new

Qualifications

• Proven experience delivering complex projects or programmes in a large, fast-paced organisation.
• Strong planning and delivery skills to manage competing priorities across multiple workstreams.
• Experience across cross-functional teams in a matrix organisation.
• Excellent stakeholder management and ability to influence senior leaders.
• Highly organised with attention to detail and ability to bring clarity to ambiguity.
• Ability to interpret data, insight and operational information to support decisions and track benefits.
• Clear and engaging written and verbal communication with high-quality reporting.
• Proactive, resilient and solution-focused mindset; customer service, contact centres or transformation experience preferred.

Responsibilities

• Lead the day-to-day delivery of complex transformation activity across multiple workstreams.
• Build and maintain integrated project plans, milestones, roadmaps and clear delivery priorities.
• Coordinate cross-functional teams, aligning stakeholders on objectives, timelines and deliverables.
• Track progress, risks, issues, dependencies, decisions and actions, escalating when appropriate.
• Drive timely decisions and practical solutions to keep delivery on track and maintain momentum.
• Produce clear updates, reports, presentations and materials for sponsors and governance forums.
• Support business readiness, communications and colleague adoption so changes land successfully.
• Identify opportunities to simplify processes, improve ways of working and deliver measurable customer, colleague and business benefits.

Skills

Project delivery

Planning

Cross-functional collaboration

Stakeholder management

Attention to detail

Data-driven decisions

Communication

Problem solving

Transformation experience

Job description

As a Programme Manager in our Retail & Digital division you’ll lead the delivery of strategically important transformation activity across our Customer Service and Contact Centre operation. Working closely with the Head of Account Management and senior stakeholders across the business, you’ll coordinate multiple workstreams and ensure change is delivered successfully, with measurable benefits for customers, colleagues and the wider organisation.

You’ll bring structure, pace and clarity to complex initiatives, managing plans, dependencies, risks and stakeholder engagement while helping teams adopt new ways of working. This is a high-profile opportunity to shape the future of customer service, improve colleague experience and strengthen operational performance at scale. The role offers a blend of home and Store Support Centre working, with travel to support centres, stores and other business locations when needed.

What you’ll be doing

• Lead the day-to-day delivery of complex transformation activity across multiple workstreams.

• Build and maintain integrated project plans, milestones, roadmaps and clear delivery priorities.

• Coordinate cross-functional teams, aligning stakeholders on objectives, timelines and deliverables.

• Track progress, risks, issues, dependencies, decisions and actions, escalating when appropriate.

• Drive timely decisions and practical solutions to keep delivery on track and maintain momentum.

• Produce clear updates, reports, presentations and materials for sponsors and governance forums.

• Support business readiness, communications and colleague adoption so changes land successfully.

• Identify opportunities to simplify processes, improve ways of working and deliver measurable customer, colleague and business benefits.

What you need to know and show

• Proven experience delivering complex projects or programmes in a large, fast-paced organisation.

• Strong planning and delivery skills, with the ability to manage competing priorities and multiple workstreams.

• Experience working across cross-functional teams and navigating a matrix organisation.

• Excellent stakeholder management, influencing and constructive challenge skills, including with senior leaders.

• A highly organised approach, strong attention to detail and confidence bringing clarity to ambiguity.

• The ability to interpret data, insight and operational information to support decisions and track benefits.

• Clear and engaging written and verbal communication, with experience producing high-quality reporting and presentations.

• A proactive, resilient and solution-focused mindset; experience in customer service, contact centres, operations or transformation would be an advantage.

We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. As the link between sellers and buyers, retail and head office, our retail operations team is the cog that keeps things running. With teams focused on store facing, labour, transformation, online, delivery and contact centre work, we touch almost every part of the business. It’s an incredibly fast-paced environment where you need to pivot not just daily, but often hourly. So while we plan all we can, it’s vital that we all think outside our job descriptions and look to optimise and improve how we do everything. There’s also a real team ethos. After all, it’s people like you who are going to truly transform this part of the business.

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 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 up to an additional week's holiday, and we provide private heathcare. 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, 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 eligibiity criteria may apply).