Commercial Finance Analyst - Supplier Planning
London, UK
Job description
Location: London Store Support Centre & Home - colleagues go into the office 1-2 days per week on average.
Why join us
Joining the Commercial Finance team at Sainsbury's offers a unique opportunity to play a pivotal role in shaping and delivering the company's strategic objectives in a dynamic and competitive retail environment. As a Finance Analyst - Supplier Planning, you will have the chance to work closely with cross-functional stakeholders, providing valuable insights and analytical support to drive impactful decision-making during commercial negotiations. By immersing yourself in the category team and leveraging your financial expertise, you will contribute to maximising sales, profit, and return on investment while fostering sustainable partnerships with suppliers. This role not only offers the opportunity to enhance your financial acumen but also provides a platform to make a meaningful impact on the business while upholding our core values and commitment to excellence.
What you'll do
As a Finance Analyst specialising in Supplier Planning, you will play a vital role in supporting the Commercial Finance team with analysis and insight to facilitate decision-making during commercial negotiations. Your responsibilities will include partnering with both Finance and Non-Finance stakeholders, providing analytical support on Supplier Planning activity, conducting scenario modelling, and analysing negotiation outcomes to understand the financial impact. You will be tasked with delivering robust financial modelling to support decisions, aligning with our plans, and realising negotiated benefits, all while effectively communicating analysis and insights to drive discussions and reviews within the team. Success in this role will be demonstrated through the ownership and development of Excel models for supplier plans, understanding commercial levers, gathering and analysing financial information, assessing target benefits, and contributing to the continuous improvement of our understanding of the economics of our supply base.
Who you are
You are a results-driven professional with a keen analytical mindset and a deep understanding of commercial margin levers and supplier business models within the FMCG and Retail sectors. Your ability to provide valuable insights through financial analysis and scenario modelling supports decision-making during commercial negotiations, contributing to the realisation of negotiated benefits and the overall success of the business. By demonstrating strong problem-solving skills, attention to detail, and effective communication, you play a critical role in shaping sustainable customer outcomes and driving shared growth through strategic supplier partnerships. This is a project based role so you’ll ideally have consulting/project type finance experience.
Essential Criteria
- Part qualified or fully qualified accountant – CIMA, ACCA, ACA
- Demonstratable experience working within FMCG, Food or Retail environments, applying knowledge of commercial margin drivers and supplier business models
- Proven ability to analyse complex financial or commercial data accurately and deliver clear, actionable insights to support decision‑making
- Demonstratable capability to build effective working relationships across cross‑functional teams such as Buying, Supply Chain, Technical, Innovation and Finance
- Ability to provide consistent, structured updates on progress, risks and issues through daily meetings and weekly reporting
- Evidence of operating effectively in a fast‑paced environment while maintaining accuracy and attention to detail
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 www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).