Senior Research Executive (Nectar Research)

In a nutshell

At Sainsbury’s we’re deeply passionate about knowing our customers better than anyone else, and using this to drive commercial success. We use Nectar, our loyalty scheme, to help do this, and Nectar360 (our consultancy business) to help share this knowledge for the benefit of our many brands, suppliers, and partners. The Nectar Research team plays a pivotal role in this, bringing the voice of the customer straight to clients and stakeholders by working as a full-service, in-house research function. Research and client excellence are always on the front of our minds.

We offer a broad range of research propositions — from media evaluation to purchase driver analyses — creating both commercial benefit (by monetising research) and strategic benefit (by creating deep, strategic insight) to the business. And with over 8 million contactable customers, a great deal of complementary customer knowledge, and a wide range of research tools and skills, we have exciting plans to push beyond the boundaries of ‘traditional’ research by innovating around new approaches and collaborating with Nectar360’s subject matter experts.

We are looking for a Research Associate, who will partner closely with Nectar360, to join the Nectar Research team within Customer Insights and help us deliver our research strategy.

What you need to do

• Support across all stages of research projects — from research design, questionnaire development, project management, quality checking, and reporting back to clients and stakeholders. 
• Help manage our day-to-day trackers (e.g., for our various partners and clients, and so on) and take the lead on reporting these to key stakeholders.
• Ensure research is carried out to a high quality and to industry best-practice.
• Transform data into insight through excellent storytelling, critical thinking, and curiosity.
• Support the wider team by sharing your expertise and supporting as needed.

What you need to know

• Experience of different research methodologies or approaches — ideally both qualitative and quantitative — and knowing which to choose and how to turn them into compelling insights.
• Experience in independently and successfully managing projects.
• Experience in drawing upon multiple sources of information to come to a point of view or recommendation.

Experience with the Microsoft Office suite (especially Excel and PowerPoint), Qualtrics, and/or Tableau would also be a benefit, but not strictly necessary.

There are many ways to have acquired these skills and this knowledge, so there are no specific qualifications required.  However, prior experience at a research agency is a benefit.

What you need to show

• A burning passion and curiosity for how we can use research, and pair it with analytics and other data or insight, to really understand what makes people ‘tick’.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills.
• Strong visualisation and data presentation skills.
• Strong analytical and numerical skills.
• A highly organized, independent, and proactive approach to work.
• Fantastic attention to detail, even when working on multiple projects concurrently. 

What decisions I can make

Your support will allow us, as a team, to act as trusted advisors to clients and stakeholders, having a significant influence on how they think about customers and products, and be able to help translate this knowledge into strategy and action. Over time, you’ll see the impact of your hard work on shelves and in stores across the UK. 

Resources available to me

• Support from a fantastic team with diverse research experience and a deep research passion.
• The rare opportunity to gain experience both ‘agency-side’, working with clients to answer their questions with fantastic research; and ‘client-side’, working with our Nectar Brand stakeholders to optimise strategy and track performance.
• Access to market-leading research tools.
• Ability to collaborate with a team of skilled analysts and consultants to help us maximise the ability to join behavioural (sales and customer) data with research data.
• A dedicated training budget, to help grow your technical expertise in research and curiosity.

We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. Everything our Nectar team does is powered and fuelled by data — and by great relationships with some of the UK’s favourite brands. The Nectar 360 team focuses on developing loyalty programmes, turning amazing data into something that makes a difference, traditional media and digital. It’s like an agency-within-a-retailer, and retail media is crucial. The culture might not be what you expect either, because there’s no set-up quite like this one. The team is a real priority because it’s connected to everything the business does and drives profitability. It’s where you can take risks, learn from them and be recognised.

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 target bonus of up to 5% of salary (which may vary for Nectar360), 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).

Please note, due to the volume of applications we receive, our roles may close early.