Senior Demand Planner

The Sterling Choice; Manchester; On-site; GBP 50,000 - 55,000; Full time

Job summary

The Sterling Choice is recruiting a Senior Demand Planner in Greater Manchester. You will own demand planning across customer, SKU and category levels, turning data from customers, history and promotions into a clear, actionable forecast for the business.

You will work with Sales, Operations, Planning and Stock Control to challenge assumptions, improve accuracy and drive commercial decisions in a fast-paced food manufacturing environment.

Qualifications

• Several years' Demand Planning experience within food, FMCG or fast-paced consumer environment.
• Exposure to major UK grocery retailers is highly valuable.
• Experience with promotional forecasting, NPD, S&OP and complex product portfolios.

Responsibilities

• Own forecasting across customer, SKU and category levels and improve accuracy and bias.
• Turn information from customers, history, promotions and launches into a credible demand plan.
• Challenge assumptions and influence commercial and operational decisions.
• Collaborate with Sales, Operations, Planning and Stock Control to align plans.

Skills

Demand planning

Forecasting

Commercial awareness

Analytical thinking

Tools

Excel

Power BI

ERP systems

Job description

Senior Demand Planner

Greater Manchester

Food Manufacturing

£50,000 - £55,000

There are Demand Planner roles where you maintain a forecast.

And there are roles where the business genuinely relies on you to tell them what is coming.

This is the latter.

You’ll join a successful, fast-moving food manufacturer supplying some of the UK's biggest grocery retailers, taking ownership of demand planning across a complex customer and product portfolio.

Promotions. Seasonality. NPD. Range changes. Customer forecasts. Long lead times.

There are plenty of moving parts.

Your job is to take all of that information and turn it into one credible demand plan that the commercial and operational teams can actually make decisions from.

Reporting into senior commercial leadership, you'll work closely with Sales, Operations, Planning and Stock Control, but this isn't a role where you simply accept the numbers you're given.

You’ll look at what the customer is saying, what historically happened, what promotions are coming, how similar launches performed and where the risks sit.

Then you'll challenge assumptions and build the forecast the business can confidently plan around.

That means taking ownership of forecasting across customer, SKU and category level, improving accuracy and bias, understanding promotional uplifts and helping the business get much better at predicting demand around NPD.

You’ll also have the opportunity to improve how demand planning is done.

The business wants someone who can look at its forecasting models, reporting, systems and processes and ask: how can we make this better?

You’ll have the data to do it, using Excel alongside tools including Power BI and ERP systems, but the real value will come from what you do with that information.

Because ultimately, they don't need somebody who can just produce a spreadsheet.

They need somebody who can explain what it means.

Someone commercially minded enough to work closely with Account Managers and major retailers, analytical enough to spot what others miss and confident enough to challenge when the numbers don't stack up.

You’ll probably already have several years' Demand Planning experience within food, FMCG or another fast-paced consumer environment, with exposure to major UK grocery retailers particularly valuable.

Experience of promotional forecasting, NPD, S&OP and complex product portfolios would all translate well.

Most importantly, you'll be joining a successful and ambitious food business where Demand Planning has genuine visibility and influence.

You won't be sitting on the edge of the operation producing reports nobody reads.

You’ll be helping determine what the business makes, what it buys, how it services its customers and where it needs to react next.

If you're a Demand Planner who wants more ownership, more commercial exposure and the opportunity to genuinely shape how a business forecasts, this is worth a conversation.