Portfolio Lead
Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: London Store Support Centre and Home, London, EC1M 6HA
Contract type: Permanent
Business area: Sainsbury's Tech
Closing date: 23 September 2025
Requisition ID: 400019964
We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. Think about the scale it takes for us to feed the nation. The level of data, transactions and variety it involves. Then you’ll realise that ours is a modern software engineering environment because it has to be. We’ve made serious investment into a Tech Academy and into setting standards and principles. We iterate, learn, experiment and push ways of working such as Agile, Scrum and XP. So you can look forward to awesome opportunities in everything from AI to reusable tech.
In a nutshell
This role will support the oversight and aggregation of all programmes and technology initiatives that align to a specific Business Portfolio. They will work closely with the Portfolio Managers, Business stakeholders and Product reps to understand the required business outcomes and understand relative priorities.
What I am accountable for:
• Accountability for an appropriate Business change Portfolio or aligned to a Portfolio working with a Portfolio Manager
• Close familiarity with the total scope and live deliveries in your area of technology including programme and initiative dependencies, timelines, plans, key decisions and risks
• The efficient application and embedding of the governance and processes designed in our PMO teams at a local level
• Supporting the delivery teams and Portfolio Manager, to achieve measurable outcomes supporting business priorities and ensuring benefits are realised
• Acting as a critical friend to the team you work with, putting your judgement to work as the pair of eyes free of the day to day that can spot and raise early any concerns with the total plan, escalating to your manager if necessary
• Involvement in programme and initiative dependencies, timelines, plans, key decisions and risks
• Involved in identifying opportunities to create efficiency of processes working closely with the PMO team to ensure all activities add value
What I need to know:
Essential:
• Experience in delivering business projects or programmes
• Experience with managing and resolving problems
• Experienced in stakeholder management
• Experience of multiple methodologies, hybrid delivery models and agile practices
Desirable:
• Retail Experience
What I need to show:
• Individual drive to deliver
• Involvement in fostering cultural change and driving engagement
• A solution-focused mindset with creativity and adaptability
• Good communication skills
Our Valued Behaviours are our common DNA that every colleague should live by and provide the benchmark for how we deliver our goals/individual contribution, and how we relate to other colleagues in the organisation.
Own it
o Do what you say you’ll do
o Don’t walk past a problem
Make it better
o Improve things for your customer
o Spot opportunities to simplify
Be human
o Walk in the shoes of your colleagues and customers
o Show care and respect to everyone
Support we will provide:
• Full system and process training for the role
• Wider Portfolio team for direction and guidance
• Access to personal development tools e.g. Bitesize talks, online self-development tools, internal mentoring etc
Work-life balance is important to us, so we offer our colleagues as much flexibility as possible in line with the needs of their role. We trust them to decide how, where and when they work, combining remote and collaborative working with a flexible approach to hours, giving them plenty of time and space for life outside of work whilst delivering against our business goals.
We are committed to making Sainsbury’s Tech a place where people love to work where diverse and engaged team make a purposeful contribution. Sainsbury’s is committed to being the most inclusive retailer, and flexible working including job sharing is welcomed wherever possible. In Tech we welcome such conversations and are proud to champion a diverse and inclusive culture.
#LI-KF1
We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer, so you’ll be welcomed whoever 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. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:
Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to get 10% off at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat after 4 weeks. This increases to 15% off at Sainsbury’s every Friday and Saturday and 15% off at Argos every pay day. 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 10% 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 additional holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, pay 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.
Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).
