Buyer
- Team
- Food
- Store
- London Support Office
- Location
- London, Greater London
- Contract type
- Permanent
- Position type
- Full Time
- Salary
- Competitive + Benefits
- Closing date: 2nd May 2025
How We Hire
Everyone is welcome at M&S. No exceptions. It’s your background, abilities and differences that make you, uniquely you. And when you’re part of M&S, that individuality has the potential to make waves.
About the role
This section tells you all you need to know about the position and its responsibilities, outlining everything we hope to see in a successful candidate.
Summary
M&S Food is changing, and fast! We are undergoing one of the biggest transformations in retailing today to build a bigger, better, fresher food business.
From Percy Pig to the freshest M&S Select Farms produce, we grow, source, and develop our own products to give our customers family-ready food that's unbeatable on flavour and innovation.
We need motivated people who are ready to bring their whole self to work and give it their all in a fast-paced team committed to being the best. After all, this is not just food… This is M&S Food.
From Percy Pig to the freshest M&S Select Farms produce, we grow, source, and develop our own products to give our customers family-ready food that's unbeatable on flavour and innovation.
We need motivated people who are ready to bring their whole self to work and give it their all in a fast-paced team committed to being the best. After all, this is not just food… This is M&S Food.
All the details
Are you ready to sweeten your career with a new challenge? Join our team as Buyers and Senior Buyers across multiple food categories, including Cake, Ready Meals, Wine, Prep Veg, Healthy & Asian, Desserts, Ambient Celebration, Deli, Prep Salads, and Sourcing Specialist! This is a fantastic opportunity to collaborate with some of the best suppliers and bakeries at an exciting time in our business growth. We lead the market for seasonal events and innovation as well as our strength in core ranges.
As a Buyer or Senior Buyer, you will collaborate with some of the best suppliers in the UK and Europe, sourcing and selecting products that ensure our ranges are diverse, competitive, and of the highest quality. You’ll build and maintain strong relationships with these suppliers, negotiating to achieve the best value while upholding our reputation for excellence. Working with the product development team to stay ahead of food trends is key, as you see opportunities to innovate and evolve our products. Working closely with our supply chain, marketing, range & display, and store operations teams, you’ll ensure successful launches and promotions of products that excite and inspire our customers.
If you have a passion for retail and delectable treats, a keen eye for quality, and excellent negotiation skills, we would love to hear from you! Join us and be a part of a team that values innovation, quality, and customer satisfaction.
To stay close to customers, our support teams are in the office three days a week as we believe that skills are developed through collaboration, and that spending time together makes us more creative and connected.
What’s in it for you
Being a part of M&S is exactly that – playing your part to bring the magic of M&S to our customers every day. We’re an inclusive, dynamic, exciting, and ever evolving business built on doing the right thing and bringing exceptional quality, value, service to every customer, whenever, wherever and however they want to shop with us.
Here are some of the benefits we offer that make working for M&S just that little bit more special…
- After completing your probationary period, you’ll receive 20% colleague discount across all M&S products and many of our third-party brands for you and a member of your household.
- Competitive holiday entitlement with the potential to buy extra holiday days!
- Discretionary bonus schemes awarded based on how you achieve your personal objectives and our performance as a business.
- A generous Defined Contribution Pension Scheme and Life Assurance.
- A dedicated welcome to our teams with a tailored induction and a wide range of training programmes to develop your skills.
- Amazing perks and discounts via our M&S Choices portal to maximise your financial and personal wellbeing.
- Industry-leading parental, adoption and neonatal policies, providing support and flexibility for your family.
- Access to a fantastic range of wellbeing support for all colleagues including access to our 24/7 Virtual GP and PAM Assist to support you and your family.
- A charity volunteer day to support a charity or cause you're passionate about through a dedicated day away from work.
What you’ll do
Your key accountabilities will include
- Drive sales and profit in line with operating plan budgets
- Drive market share performance
- Lead relationship with suppliers through effective commercial management
- Prepare and agree category plan with Management Team through analysis of customer insight, sales and trends
- Set effective range strategies to optimise selling format and product choice, understanding space requirements
Who you are
Your skills and experience will include
- Decision making
- Commercial savvy and negotiation skills
- Strong communication and influencing skills
- Analysis of commercial and customer information to seize & deliver commercial opportunities
- Team working
Everyone’s welcome
We are ambitious about the future of retail. We’re disrupting, innovating and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We’re transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. Marks & Spencer strives to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make change happen. We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best. We support each other and work together to win together. If you feel you'd benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please don’t hesitate to let us know when completing your application. This information will be picked up by our team, so we can try and put steps in place to help you be at your best through this process.
#LI-Hybrid
Being an in-person business
We're at our best when we're close to customers, and for many of us at M&S, that means working in store every day.
To stay close to customers, our support teams are in the office three days a week as we believe that skills are developed through collaboration, and that spending time together makes us more creative and connected. It also means we can solve problems as soon as they arise, learn and grow as a team, build trust, and get closer to our colleagues.
End of quote slider carousel
Make Your Mark
Opportunities to be heard
Your voice matters here. You can share your ideas ‘Straight to Stuart’, our CEO, or get involved in our BIG (Business involvement Group). Our colleague networks are also great places to find support, listen to each other and encourage debate.
Experience the business
We’re passionate about our customers and colleagues. To get closer to our customers we work in our stores 7 days per year. That way we can see how operations run and look for ways to do better each day.
End of slider Colleague Networks carousel
Benefits
How to Apply
Here’s what to expect at each stage of the application process. This can change depending on the role you’ve applied to. If you need any reasonable adjustments made at any stage, let us know and we can help.
Send us your application
Fill in our short application form and hit submit.
Online assessment
We’ll invite you to take part in an online assessment. This could be before or after your interview.
In-person assessment centre
We’ll invite you to an in-person assessment centre for an interview. This process may differ depending on the role you’ve applied to.
Decision
After we’ve decided, we’ll be in touch. If you’ve been successful, we’ll officially invite you to join the team and let you know the next steps.
Buyer
- Team
- Food
- Store
- London Support Office
- Location
- London, Greater London
- Contract type
- Permanent
- Position type
- Full Time
- Salary
- Competitive + Benefits
- Closing date: 2nd May 2025
- Reference: 92837