Waitrose & Partners
Waitrose Buyer
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About The Role
We are looking for a commercial, data-led, and collaborative Buyer to join our team here at Waitrose. As a Waitrose Buyer, you won’t just manage products—you will become the authoritative expert for your categories. Supported by an Senior Buyer, you will translate our overall business vision into dynamic, category-level commercial plans. You will lead a cross-functional "Pod" of up to seven Partners, inspiring end-to-end thinking, promoting efficiency, and driving profitable growth across range, pricing, and promotional strategies.
Salary - £44,000 - £69,100
Contract type - This position is a Secondment/Fixed Term contract for 12 months.
Working pattern/flexible working - The Partnership has adopted a hybrid working approach, meaning you'll be able to work a mixture between the office and home based upon your personal needs whilst balancing the needs of the business. Alongside this we have also signalled a clear intent for Central teams to work ‘more in person than not.’ For the Waitrose Trading Team this means 3 days a week of in-person time but it is not a hard and fast rule requiring everyone to be in the office 3 days a week. Supplier visits, time in our shops and time in the office all contribute to this requirement. Travel including overseas travel may be required.
Location - Bracknell
Key Responsibilities
- Drive Commercial Excellence: Develop optimised range, pricing, and promotional strategies using data-led decisions and real-world insights gathered from regular visits to Waitrose shops, competitor stores, and websites.
- Own Supplier Strategy: Create and nurture strong supplier relationships. You will maintain an ‘always on’ approach to cost of goods management, optimizing product cost compositions while fiercely maintaining our high quality and ethical standards.
- Lead a Cross-Functional Team: Manage and inspire your category Pod, utilizing the diverse expertise of your team members to bring your vision to life.
- Uphold Ethics & Compliance: Ensure operations align at all times with GSCOP, Competition Law, and our industry-leading Environmental & Sustainability policies (including food waste, animal welfare, and packaging reduction).
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Essential Skills/experience You’ll Need
- Expertise in utilising data for strategic choice processes
- Experience of cross-functional matrix working
- Experience of engaging and influencing at different levels within a commercial organisation
- Clear understanding of GSCoP, Competition Law and other legislation relevant to a Buying role
Desirable Skills/experience You May Have
- Experience as a Junior Buyer or equivalent commercial role
About The Partnership
We’re the largest employee owned business in the UK and home of our cherished brands, John Lewis and Waitrose. We’re not just employees, we’re Partners, driven by our purpose to build a happier world. As we look to our future, there’s never been a more exciting time to join us.
We’re ruthlessly focused on being brilliant at retail. We continue to innovate, adapt and diversify. Never Knowingly Undersold on price, quality and service in John Lewis and passionately serving food-lovers in Waitrose.
As Partners we all share the responsibility of ownership and in its rewards. We use our voices to contribute to our success, working together through the good and challenging times, holding true to our behaviours and treating everyone with kindness and respect.
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We all own making the Partnership somewhere we belong. Embracing our differences and creating an environment where we’re free to be ourselves and can THRIVE. Growing ourselves individually, and as a collective.
As Partners, we make all the difference. And, we all own it.
Important points to note:
- It’s important to note that some of our roles are subject to pre-employment vetting (which may include DBS checks for successful candidates). If required, you’ll be informed and provided with information about vetting during the recruitment process and we encourage you to complete any vetting documents quickly to avoid delays. Any DBS checks required will be carried out by a third-party registered body and financial probity checks may also be required for some of our roles.
- We occasionally close vacancies early in the event we receive a high volume of applications, and therefore, we recommend you apply early. If you require a reasonable adjustment due to a disability which means you may need longer to complete your application please contact us as soon as possible.
- We want all of our Partners to have a good work-life balance and we support flexible working. This might mean flexible or compressed hours, job sharing or shorter hour contracts, where possible. Please discuss this further with the hiring manager during your interview.
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