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Category Insights Manager - 12 month Mat Cover
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Category & Insights Manager (12-Month Maternity Cover)
FMCG / Branded Food & Drink | Hybrid – London or South Coast
Salary: £55,000 - £65,000
A rare opportunity to become part of a well-established, values-led branded food company with a portfolio of much-loved household brands.
Recognised as a Great Place to Work, they combine strong commercial performance with a genuine purpose-driven culture, and are part of a larger global food group with employees worldwide.
This is a fantastic opportunity to join a high-performing category team at the heart of the commercial function, taking ownership of category insight and reporting across two much-loved consumer brands while colleagues are on maternity leave.
The Role
Providing dedicated category and insights support across two of the business's core categories, this role will strengthen the reputation of the category team through high-quality, insight that drives real commercial decisions. You'll create capacity within the wider team by owning regular reporting and analysis, and will occasionally support customer-facing category presentations to retailers.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead and deliver internal category insights and reporting, primarily for one core category but flexing into a second depending on team workload
- Leverage a wide breadth of sales and shopper data sources to shape category strategy and strengthen customer-facing propositions
- Draw on EPOS, market data and shopper research to elevate category thinking and translate raw data into meaningful, growth-driving insight
- Liaise with external agency partners to maintain data integrity and output quality
- Manage reporting processes, embracing new technology and AI adoption to streamline manual reporting and free up time for higher-value insight work
- Take ownership of streamlining reporting, dashboards and performance tracking for a more consistent, unified approach
- Support ad hoc analysis and internal requests, translating data into clear recommendations
- Analyse promotional and NPD performance to identify growth opportunities
- Support seamless knowledge transfer and capability building across the wider category team during the cover period
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About You
- Extensive experience with, and a competent user of, Dunnhumby (Tesco) sales & shopper data, with a track record of turning data-led insight into commercial action
- Agency background preferred, ideally with experience supporting multiple clients, categories or brands
- Experience with other leading continuous data sources such as Circana (IRI), Numerator (Kantar) or Nectar SIP is an advantage
- Strong category management and insight generation experience, ideally within grocery, FMCG or a retail customer-facing environment
- Confident translating shopper, market and customer data into clear recommendations for both internal stakeholders and retail customers
- Strong communication and stakeholder influencing skills, with the ability to work collaboratively across commercial teams
- Commercially curious, proactive, and comfortable operating in a fast-moving environment with multiple priorities
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Practical Details
- Contract: 12-month fixed-term maternity cover – candidates should ideally be available to start within the next month
- Right to work: British passport, permanent residency, or legal right to work in the UK for the full 12-month contract period is essential
- Working pattern: Hybrid, minimum 2 days per week in the office (South Coast England or London – London preferred)
What's on Offer
- 25 days holiday + bank holidays + your birthday off
- Private Medical Insurance from day one (plus dental and optical fund)
- Life Assurance and Income Protection
- Contributory pension scheme starting at 5% employer contribution, rising to 10% with service, plus free pension advice
- Enhanced maternity and paternity pay
- Employee assistance programme access
- Wellbeing perks in-office (varies by location)
- Salary sacrifice schemes: childcare support, home & tech, cycle to work, electric car scheme
- Flexible bank holidays and summer hours (July/August)
- Learning opportunities and study leave
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