M&S Food is changing, and fast! We are undergoing one of the biggest transformations in retailing today to build a bigger, better, fresher food business.

From Percy Pig to the freshest M&S Select Farms produce, we grow, source, and develop our own products to give our customers family-ready food that's unbeatable on flavour and innovation.

We need motivated people who are ready to bring their whole self to work and give it their all in a fast-paced team committed to being the best.

After all, this is not just food… This is M&S Food.

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced Project Manager to join M&S Foods and to work at the heart of M&S product development and innovation. In this role, you will be aligned to a specific trading area and will play an integral part in ensuring new product and packaging activity moves from concept through to launch on time and to cost. You will have a key role to play from the moment we have an idea through to its launching, with the reward of then seeing the product come to life in store!

This role would be suitable for someone who loves working in a fast-paced environment and isn’t afraid to get into the thick of it to resolve problems and keep things on track. You’ll be working in a team of project managers that are all aligned behind driving consistent ways of working and performance across the Food Group, providing effective governance of the end to end process to ensure we continue to deliver outstanding product and packaging activity for our customers.

Key accountabilities;

• Responsible for governing the end to end product & packaging activity development process to ensure all New product development (NPD) and Everyday product development (EPD) is launched in-store and on time for your trading area to meet your performance indictors
• Accountable for defining a realistic critical path for each project with clear owners and timescales, and challenging where timescales are not achievable
• Hold partners (colleagues from our business, suppliers and service providers) to account to adhere to the process and to ensure all critical steps are delivered on time through effective meetings and communication
• Attend regular team governance meetings with the Head of Product & Packaging Planning to identify any risks and issues for the overall Food Group
• Continually look for ways to improve the process to raise the target for the number of products delivered to stores on time for launch for your cluster, and to drive efficiency in the process

Key skills/preferred experience

• Project management qualification accompanied by job-related experience
• Excellent internal & external leadership skills, with the ability to challenge and hold partners to account and influence skills
• Agile mentality, comfortable in a fast-paced, constantly evolving environment with knowledge and understanding of the Stage & Gate process
• Excellent Excel skills (including VLOOKUPs and pivot tables)

M&S is ready to push boundaries to lead the industry into a greener, speedier, more inspiring digital era. That’s why we’re revolutionising how we work and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. There’s never been a better time to be part of our team. Marks & Spencer aims to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make an immediate impact. We are committed to an active Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunities Policy, which starts with our recruitment and selection process, and we are happy to talk smart/flexible working.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process. If you consider yourself to have a disability or learning difficulty which means you are unable to complete the application process online, please get in touch either by phone on 0345 300 3725 or by email recruitment.online@marksandspencer.com so we can make alternative arrangements for you.