Costa Coffee
Operations Continuous Improvement Manager
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Operations Continuous Improvement Manager
The Operations Continuous Improvement Manager will lead, design, and deliver continuous improvement initiatives across Costa’s retail operations, simplifying ways of working, improving efficiency, and embedding sustainable, standardised processes that enhance both partner experience and customer outcome.
At Costa Coffee, we are what we craft. We’re reimagining coffee experiences in over 50 countries and counting, as a key part of the Coca-Cola System. Whether you get your coffee in a store, from a machine, at home, or on the go – we’ve got you covered.
Our teams make a difference. Whether that’s:
- Working on new tech for the perfect pour
- Helping our teams grow
- Creating award-winning campaigns
- Crunching the numbers
- Developing the latest exciting menu item
Together, we stir up success.
We may be a global brand, but we haven’t forgotten our roots. That’s where the Costa Foundation and our fantastic community agenda come in. Whatever your role, you can help us change lives in coffee growing communities and help your local community too.
We also want to help you grow in your career through amazing experiences, our apprenticeship scheme, and development programmes. At Costa, you can go beyond the day-to-day.
As our Continuous Improvement Manager, there’s never been a better time to make a difference
So, why Costa?
We didn’t become a global coffee brand by sitting back. When you work here, you join a community that values passion, progression, and integrity, with some pretty brilliant perks to sweeten the deal:
- Own a piece of Costa’s success by becoming a share owner in Coca-Cola with our Share Investment Plan (SIP)
- A smart pension that saves you money on tax and national insurance, and matches your contributions up to 10%
- The Costa Financial Support Fund, supporting team members who find themselves in unexpected financial pressure
- 50% discount in all Costa-owned stores, and 25% off in other participating stores
- Private medical cover thanks to our Private Healthcare scheme
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And that’s not all. Explore even more of our perks here: https://bit.ly/costaperks
We’re passionate about being a great place to work, where you can bring your unique self into our mix. We firmly support diversity, equity, and inclusion, and continue to work with our teams to shape the future of our culture and values: Disciplined to Deliver, Passion for Progress, Win with Warmth, Courage to Challenge, and Trusted Team Players.
What you’ll do
Being a Continuous Improvement Manager is about so much more than bringing our coffee to the world. It’s your chance to stir up real success - which means you’ll be:
- Act as a subject matter expert in continuous improvement and lean thinking, to identify root causes of operational challenges and translate back into practical, scalable solutions.
- Apply CI methodology and problem-solving tools to reduce waste, variation, and complexity in retail operations.
- Use data and insight to diagnose root causes, track impact, and sustain improvements.
- Connect CI outcomes directly to commercial outcomes including productivity, sales, waste, availability, and customer experience.
- Seek out and apply best practice from the retail and hospitality industry to allow you to lead change by influencing stakeholders across field, central, and senior leadership teams.
- Lead and develop a team of 2 direct reports, building capability, engagement, and subject matter expertise across the team.
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Who you are
It’s your unique ingredients we’re interested in:
- Experienced in driving operational excellence and continuous improvement across retail and multi-site environments through process standardisation, transformation, and lean methodologies.
- Proven track record leading improvement teams and delivering sustainable change that enhances efficiency, consistency, and operational performance.
- Strong problem solver with the ability to turn data into actionable insight, communicate and influence effectively across all levels, and coach teams through change.
- Highly organised and delivery-focused, with proven success leading end-to-end improvement initiatives and collaborating across complex matrix environments.
- Proven track record delivering measurable operational improvement and commercial impact across complex, multi-site environments.
- Experienced leading cross-functional teams, pilots, and improvement programmes, while building capability and driving change at pace.
- Ideally a formal Continuous Improvement/Lean qualification, with hospitality or QSR experience and a strong understanding of operational excellence best practice and emerging industry trends.
- Retail, hospitality, or consumer-facing operational experience coupled with experience embedding CI capability in others.
Where you’ll work:
Field-based with the expectation of 3 days out in the business.
For any reasonable adjustments and general queries, please get in touch with costa.recruitment@costacoffee.com.
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