Portfolio Manager

We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work‑life balance. That’s waiting for you here at Sainsbury’s. For a FTSE business, we move incredibly fast. When we’re not leading projects, we’re supporting teams across the wider group to achieve their goals. And here, you can see the impact of your work as soon as you walk into a store, giving you a real sense of purpose and responsibility. Better still, the team around you will listen to your ideas and opinions, and you’ll have every chance to try something new. The scale and complexity of our business mean there’s always something new to learn, and we’ll support you every step of the way. We’re trusted to get on with it. So get ready to make things happen.

Location Hybrid – London or Manchester base, with approximately 2 days per week office‑based.

About The Team You’ll join the Finance Operations & Change team at the heart of Sainsbury’s Transformation agenda. Working across Finance, Business Planning and Technology, the team provides clear visibility of change activity, resource demand, and delivery progress. As part of a small, high‑impact team, you’ll help shape how transformation is delivered across Finance—driving consistency, improving connectivity, and supporting informed decision‑making.

More About The Role As Portfolio Manager, you will provide a single, joined‑up view of transformation activity impacting Finance. You’ll ensure consistent data capture, build reporting frameworks, and track programme performance, cost, and delivery milestones. A key part of the role is supporting governance—ensuring projects that are aligned, structured, and progressing effectively—while enabling leadership teams to prioritise with confidence. You will also connect Finance with the wider transformation community by facilitating engagement, supporting alignment sessions, and improving knowledge sharing. Through dependency mapping, resource alignment, and continuous improvement of tooling and processes, you’ll drive collaboration and support effective delivery. You’ll also champion a transformation mindset, enabling agile ways of working and continuous improvement across the organisation.

More About You You are experienced in working in transformation or portfolio environments, bringing a strong focus on reporting, governance, and programme coordination. Confidence in working with complex data enables the development of your structured approaches and clear outputs that support effective decision‑making. A key strength you bring is creating visibility into transformation demand through consistent data capture and reporting, providing a clear view of change activity, resource requirements, and programme progress. Comfortable in working independently and with ambiguity, you drive activity across multiple stakeholders while building effective relationships. Your communication style adapts to different audiences, including senior stakeholders, ensuring alignment and clarity. You will have regular engagement with wider transformation communities that support collaboration, knowledge sharing, and aligned outcomes across portfolios. Your contribution to decision‑making is demonstrated through supporting the development of metrics, governance frameworks, and milestone tracking, ensuring programmes are structured and delivered effectively. You bring a collaborative mindset that underpins your approach, alongside role‑modeling agile ways of working and a commitment to continuous learning and improvement. You can balance analytical thinking with a pragmatic approach, ensuring delivery at pace while navigating complexity.

Essential Criteria Proven delivery of transformation or portfolio support, evidenced through structuring, tracking, and reporting on complex programmes and change initiatives. Established Management Information and reporting frameworks, demonstrating measurable use of data and dashboards to monitor delivery progress and outcomes. Coordinated cross‑functional projects and resource plans, with clear evidence of mapping dependencies and supporting governance and milestone tracking. Influenced and aligned stakeholders across business functions, demonstrating tailored communication to drive collaboration and decision‑making. Applied structured problem‑solving approaches, evidencing the ability to work independently, navigate ambiguity, and progress competing priorities to completion.

Benefits We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer so you’ll be welcomed whatever 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. Starting off with colleague discount, you’ll be able to save 10% on your shopping online and in‑store 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 20% 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, and we provide private healthcare. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, interest‑free car loan of up to £10k, 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.