Junior Buyer - Maternity Cover

Hybrid (Head Office – Windermere | Minimum 3 days per week) Fixed Term Maternity Cover for 9 months - (39 hours per week). We’re on the lookout for a Junior Buyer to join our Buying team at Lakeland, the home of creative kitchenware and home solutions. If you’re a commercially-minded individual with a passion for product and a sharp eye for detail, this is an exciting opportunity to help define and deliver a product range that delights our customers and drives business success.

As a Junior Buyer, you’ll play a key role in helping deliver our department’s sales and margin targets. Working closely with the Buyer and Merchandiser, you’ll support the development of our buying and category strategies—ensuring our product range stands out in the market and meets the needs of both our customers and the business. You will take ownership of specific product categories and be involved in all aspects of buying—from sourcing and supplier negotiation to critical path management and quality assurance.

• Supporting the Buyer in developing and delivering the department’s buying and category strategy.
• Taking responsibility for parts of the product range—sourcing, designing, and negotiating to help achieve sales and margin targets.
• Monitoring market trends and competitors to ensure our range is both differentiated and competitive.
• Managing pricing and promotional strategies to ensure commercial success.
• Supporting supplier relationships, including negotiating supplier funding and commercial terms.
• Ensuring critical paths are met, including QA and packaging requirements.
• Monitoring product performance and customer feedback to drive continuous improvement.
• Working with internal teams to ensure compliance with UK/EU legislation and quality standards.

Experience & Knowledge:

• A demonstrable track record of operating in a buying department, gained within a non-food (and ideally hard goods) retail organisation.
• Experience in developing own brand products and the associated critical path steps.
• Experience working with Far East suppliers.
• Ideally 3rd party supplier management experience.
• Multi-channel background with an understanding of the implications of the retail and online channels on the product selections.
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, with a good level of computer literacy and numeracy.

Key Capabilities:

• Commercially astute and possesses strong analytical skills, able to make sense of complex and logical problems quickly with the ability to turn data into action.
• A clear thinker, able to articulate and build confidence in a recommended way forward.
• Customer focused, with the ability to recognise the customer and commercial trade-offs, articulating the case for change with supporting customer and commercial benefits.
• Naturally planned and organised, juggling multiple time horizons, with the ability to prioritise and manage competing demands to drive the greatest value.
• A good influencer and engager, able to build and nurture relationships with suppliers, yet be positively demanding.
• Confidence, patience, politeness, tact and diplomacy, when dealing with difficult situations.
• A team player, able to collaborate with others whilst positively challenging and welcoming feedback to drive self-improvement.

Founded in the early 60s, with the same strong values of quality and customer care now as when we first started. From selling plastic bags for home freezing from the Rayner family garage in Windermere, to over 4000 kitchen and home products today, Lakeland has grown to the extent that we now send out thousands of parcels a day from our Kendal despatch centre, and we have stores nationwide, stretching from Aberdeen to Exeter, with more in the pipeline.

There are many benefits to being part of the Lakeland team. Other than being part of a huge and happy working family, our colleagues are rewarded with a competitive salary, discretionary bonus scheme and a group personal pension plan. There are 29 days’ paid holiday (including bank holidays) and generous discounts on our products. We offer a great retail environment, and the chance to be part of a team who like to work and socialise together.