Retail Strategy & Design Specialist in London

This is a brilliant opportunity to step into a high impact strategic role, driving the evolution of our Waitrose retail ecosystem. You will be fundamental to how our physical shops and customer touchpoints adapt to meet the future, ensuring our operations remain relentlessly focused on excellence. As the Retail Strategy & Design Specialist, you will act as the true "engine room" of the team. You will be responsible for transforming visionary strides into a clear, data backed roadmap. Rooted in adaptability and a continuous improvement mindset, you will use deep subject matter expertise to ensure that every strategic move is powered by organised data and a hands on commitment to quality.

By balancing immediate operational gains with long-term ecosystem growth, you will help shape a retail environment that is both forward thinking and deeply practical. Ultimately, you will serve as the vital bridge between high level ambition and measurable execution.

Key responsibilities

• Manage the execution of key Retail Strategy initiatives, proactively driving cross functional alignment and mitigating risks across physical shops and Retail Product teams.
• Manage a clear Horizon 1–3 strategy for each retail-owned priority and capability requirements ensuring a balanced roadmap of immediate optimizations (H1), emerging opportunities (H2), and future-state innovations (H3).
• Translate market and competitor intelligence into clear, strategic implications, proposing actionable design mandates that directly inform the Retail Research and Design teams' priorities.
• Drive operational excellence for the Retail Research and Design functions, independently managing the planning and execution of strategic workshops, customer immersion sessions, and design sprints.
• Own the end-to-end Proof of Concept (PoC) lifecycle, defining the trial structure, managing in-store implementation, and ensuring robust, closed-loop feedback mechanisms are established and utilised.
• Design and implement robust measurement frameworks for all trials and PoC’s, leading the analysis of key metrics to rigorously validate strategic assumptions, inform investment decisions, and quantify return on investment (ROI) which can be considered by the business.
• Serve as the primary strategic interface for Retail Product teams, establishing and embedding design principles to ensure consistent and high-quality Customer/Partner journeys across all initiatives.
• Conduct proactive field immersion, utilising direct Partner feedback and trial insights to independently identify and escalate critical operational risks and high-value strategic opportunities.
• Actively map, engage and influence key stakeholders to align on key priorities and ways of working to enable successful strategic enablement.

Essential skills / experience

• Strategic Planning and Foresight
• Commercial & Financial Modelling
• Value Proposition Design
• Insight Synthesis
• Stakeholder & People Management

Desirable Experience

• Project & Change Management Experience
• Strategic foresight
• Product management & design

We’re the largest employee owned business in the UK and home of our cherished brands, John Lewis and Waitrose. We’re not just employees, we’re Partners, driven by our purpose to build a happier world. As we look to our future, there’s never been a more exciting time to join us.

We’re ruthlessly focused on being brilliant at retail. We continue to innovate, adapt and diversify. Never Knowingly Undersold on price, quality and service in John Lewis and passionately serving food-lovers in Waitrose.

As Partners we all share the responsibility of ownership and in its rewards. We use our voices to contribute to our success, working together through the good and challenging times, holding true to our behaviours and treating everyone with kindness and respect.

We all own making the Partnership somewhere we belong. Embracing our differences and creating an environment where we’re free to be ourselves and can THRIVE. Growing ourselves individually, and as a collective.

As Partners, we make all the difference. And, we all own it.

Important points to note:

• It’s important to note that some of our roles are subject to pre-employment vetting (which may include DBS checks for successful candidates). If required, you’ll be informed and provided with information about vetting during the recruitment process and we encourage you to complete any vetting documents quickly to avoid delays.
• Any DBS checks required will be carried out by a third-party registered body and financial probity checks may also be required for some of our roles.
• We occasionally close vacancies early in the event we receive a high volume of applications, and therefore, we recommend you apply early.
• If you require a reasonable adjustment due to a disability which means you may need longer to complete your application please contact us as soon as possible.
• We want all of our Partners to have a good work-life balance and we support flexible working. This might mean flexible or compressed hours, job sharing or shorter hour contracts, where possible. Please discuss this further with the hiring manager during your interview.