About the team
We’re currently looking for a Seasonal Event Planner to join the team. You’ll join the Seasonal Event Planning team within Sainsbury’s Commercial division, responsible for delivering our annual calendar of retail and seasonal events. Working cross functionally with Buying, Merchandising, Marketing, Digital, Supply Chain and Operations, the team ensures each event lands brilliantly for customers - optimised, operationally sound and commercially impactful. This is a fast paced, collaborative environment where customer focus and commercial delivery sit at the heart of everything we do.
More about the role
As an Event Planner, you will lead the end to end planning of a portfolio of events, from kick off through to launch. You’ll manage critical paths and key milestones, ensuring all activities are delivered on time and to the highest standard. You’ll bring teams together across the Commercial function, keeping stakeholders aligned and fully informed through clear and structured communication.
A key part of the role will be ensuring our plans land effectively in store, including accurate space allocation, operational readiness and store communications. You will proactively track performance, analyse data and deliver Post Implementation Reviews (PIRs) with clear recommendations that shape future activity. You’ll also support continuous improvement by spotting risks early and proposing practical, insight led solutions.
More about you
You bring strong planning capability and thrive in environments with multiple deadlines. You’ll be organised, proactive and confident managing several events simultaneously with pace and accuracy. You’re comfortable working with a range of stakeholders.
You’ll take a data led approach to decision making, able to translate large data sets into practical actions. With strong commercial awareness and a focus on customer impact, you’ll understand how to optimise space, assess competitor activity and ensure that plans truly resonate with customers. You’ll also be calm in ambiguity, a self starter and someone who takes ownership of delivering high quality work.
Essential criteria
1. Proven experience delivering in a retail or commercial role, including event critical path management and milestone tracking
2. Ability to manage multiple events simultaneously with pace, accuracy and strong organisational skills
3. Demonstrated stakeholder management across Buying, Merchandising, Marketing, Digital, Supply Chain and Operations
4. Strong commercial and analytical capability, including performance review, PIR delivery, data interpretation and insight led recommendations
5. Strong proficiency in Excel, PowerPoint and Word, with clear, concise communication skills and the ability to influence through insight
We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. Here, everything in our Sainsbury’s stores starts out in Sainsbury’s Commercial. Whether it’s the product, proposition, packaging or price, or the fact that something tastes great, our team is responsible for all food, non- food and Clothing items available in Sainsbury’s stores, digitally and on demand. You’ll discover it’s incredibly fast-paced. People here are in it together and not afraid to take risks. They’re enthusiastic too, and their amazing leadership team is right behind them. The knowledge and experience you gain here could set you up for career moves anywhere else in the business. So, if you’re passionate about your products and just as hungry to learn, you’ll fit in perfectly.
We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new — whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:
Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to save 10% on your shopping online and instore at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat, and we regularly increase the discount to 15% at points during the year. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 10% of salary, depending on how we perform.
Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance and you can buy up to an additional week's holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, salary advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an employee assistance programme.
Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.
Please see for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).