Format Design Lead 
£39,950 - £42,300 plus excellent benefits (Work Level 6A) 

12-month fixed-term contract
Manchester city centre, in this role you’ll work in a hybrid way, splitting your time between home and the office (find out more about our hybrid working policy at colleagues.coop.co.uk/hybrid-working-policy). 

We’re looking for a creative and motivated Format Design Lead to join Co-op’s Format and Innovation team. In this role, we’ll look to you to manage the end-to-end design and development of format design propositions for our food business. You’ll primarily be responsible for the development of new permanent equipment and branding solutions, but also collaborate with other internal teams on the full customer proposition put into stores. 

You’ll work collaboratively with a wide range of teams, suppliers, and design agencies, delivering briefs that are in line with our format design principles. This is a fantastic opportunity for you to use your creativity and passion to create a great customer experience to make a tangible difference across one of the UK’s largest retail estates.

What you’ll do

• Lead the end-to-end design process for format design propositions, taking ownership of the permanent equipment and branding design and development
• Provide design advice to key external business partners on design principles, format brand guidelines, cost elements and model impacts
• Write design briefs so that our suppliers and design agencies can design, and develop customer lead creative solutions
• Collaborate with colleagues across proposition, customer teams and wider Co-op functions, using their expertise to help you create designs that deliver the best solution without financial or operational impacts
• Update format and business owners on design progress and provide regular status reporting
• Work hand in hand with our deployment team who will deploy your design solutions into our estate
• Conduct reviews and analysis of projects, sharing feedback with the wider format and innovation team 

This role would suit people who have

• A creative / design background
• Experience of working with external suppliers and design agencies
• Great communication and presentation skills 
• A passion for innovation and previous experience of working on change projects
• Strong problem-solving skills – you’re able to really understand briefs and come up with creative solutions

Why Co-op? 

If you have the skills that we need, we can offer you a competitive salary and great benefits package which includes 30% off Co-op branded products in our food stores (as well as other discounts on Co-op products and services).

• An annual bonus (based on personal and business performance)
• 28 days holiday (rising to 32 with service) plus bank holidays 
• A pension with up to 10% employer contributions
• Access to a subsidised onsite gym (at our Manchester HQ)
• Coaching and training to support your career development
• Wagestream app – giving you access to a percentage of your pay as you earn

At Co-op, we’re proud to do things a different way. As one of the world’s largest co-operatives, owned by millions of members, community is at the heart of what we do. Since our Co-op was founded in 1844, we’ve had a clear social purpose, and everything we do as a business helps to build a fairer world for our members, customers, colleagues, and communities. 

Building a diverse environment

We’re actively building diverse teams and we welcome applications from everyone. If you have a disability, we can make reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process according to your needs. We're also part of the Disability Confident scheme, meaning we'll always offer an interview to disabled candidates who apply through the scheme if they meet the minimum criteria for a job.

We'll ask whether you’d like to be considered under the Disability Confident scheme when you apply.

If we invite you to take part in the recruitment process for any of our jobs, we’ll ask you if you need any reasonable adjustments to enable you to participate.

You can find out more about our recruitment process at jobs.coop.co.uk/apply-process

You can find out more about the Disability Confident scheme and all our commitments to diversity and inclusion at colleagues.coop.co.uk/diversity-inclusion-and-wellbeing

Please note that we may close applications for this role early. 

As part of your application, you'll need to complete an online assessment. This assessment typically takes between 45-60 minutes.