Buyer

We’re looking for an experienced Buyer to join our retail team to look after our property theme ranges, responsible for planning and delivering the National Trust's product and supplier strategy, managing sales over £30m per year - this is only set to grow. This is a challenging and exciting role that will be responsible for prioritising our long-term commercial growth plans and ensuring our offer is competitive and matches current market trends.

This is a fixed term contract due to end when the previous employee returns from maternity leave.  At this point we cannot confirm exactly how long this contract will last, but it is unlikely to be more than 12 months. 

There’s never been a more exciting time to be a part of our multi-site retail business that puts people and places at the heart of its work. We have a clear strategic direction and a huge amount of opportunity and ambition. This crucial and exciting role provides a chance to play a key part in driving profitable, sustainable growth that helps the charity to deliver its core purpose, whilst enhancing our visitor’s experiences at our places.

Your contractual location will be our head office in Swindon and there’ll be an expectation for you to attend the office 2 days a week. However, there’s flexibility on where you’re based at other times. You’ll be required to work at a National Trust location for 40-60% of your working week. This will be discussed in more detail at interview.

You'll be responsible for growing the business commercially in new and innovative directions, identifying and utilising new opportunities to meet budgets.

You'll create ranges that link to our cause, engaging both the organisation and our supporters - in turn extending the Trust’s reach and emotional connection to our audiences. Focusing on Theme product you’ll curate ranges that relate to the place they are sold, extending and enriching the visitor experience in the retail environment. You’ll be responsible for managing multiple categories in Theme and will need to bring strong negotiation and communication skills.

You'll need to build and maintain excellent relationships with the retail and area managers and the wider buying, merchandising, sourcing and visual merchandising team, to achieve optimum results through effective strategic management of budget and supply base.

You can view the full role profile for this role in the document attached. You don't need to have all the knowledge, skills and experience listed in the role profile; this is just to provide a full picture of what is possible in this role.

We’d love to hear from you if you have:

• Knowledge of the UK retail market and worldwide supplier base for the relevant product areas
• An understanding of product design, product development and manufacturing processes
• Experience of Property theme range building, product management and understanding of the drivers for customer satisfaction, repeat business, spend, margins and profitability across multiple sites and online.
• Knowledge of buying planning systems.
• Experience in ensuring policies, frameworks and standards are fully implemented.
• Excellent communication and influencing skills and the ability to build relationships in a multi-stakeholder environment.
• Experience in analysing data to produce insight which drives performance.
• Resilience and tenacity, able to work under pressure and manage multiple deadlines.

The National Trust has the motto ‘For everyone, for ever’ at its heart. We’re working hard to create an inclusive culture, where everyone feels they belong. It’s important that our people reflect and represent the diversity of the communities and audiences we serve. We welcome and value difference, so when we say we’re for everyone, we want everyone to be welcome in our teams too.

•Substantial pension scheme of up to 10% basic salary

•Free entry to National Trust places for you, a guest and your children (under 18)

•Rental deposit loan scheme

•Season ticket loan

•EV car lease scheme 

•Perks at work discounts such as gym memberships, shopping discount codes, cinema discounts

•Holiday allowance up to 32 days relating to length of service, plus holiday purchase scheme, subject to meeting minimum criteria.

•Flexible working whenever possible

•Employee assistance programme

•Free parking at most Trust places

Click here to find out more about the benefits we offer to support you.