Format Design & Innovation Manager
£59,000 to £65,000 plus great benefits (Work level 5)
Manchester city centre / Hybrid working (with a minimum of 2 days a week in the office dependent on business needs, and the rest working from home)
This role will involve occasional travel to visit stores
Shape the future of convenience retail at Co-op
At Co-op, we’re redefining how our stores serve customers today while building the formats of tomorrow. As a Format Design & Innovation Manager, you’ll lead the customer-driven, end-to-end innovation agenda across our store estate. You’ll shape customer experience, commercial performance and operational effectiveness across Retail and B2B (business to business) stores, as well as in-store solutions for our quick commerce and partnership channels. This is a rare opportunity to influence both immediate improvements and long-term format strategy, turning insight and innovation into scalable, real-world solutions that improve how our stores look, feel and perform.
What you’ll do
• Own the end to end development of future store formats, driving innovation across customer experience, layout, fixtures and operational effectiveness, from concept through to scalable rollout.
• Turn customer insight, market trends and strategic priorities into practical, commercially viable format and design solutions, balancing customer experience, brand consistency, operational delivery and cost.
• Lead design innovation through trials, pilots and continuous improvement, owning testing cycles, shaping investment decisions with evidence, and ensuring ideas are executable and scalable across the estate.
• Continuously optimise existing formats, fixtures and design standards, maintaining alignment and balancing priorities with wider business initiatives and transformation programmes.
• Serve as a trusted format and design expert, shaping decisions and influencing senior stakeholders across key business functions.
• Develop and maintain a clear roadmap across short, medium and long-term horizons.
What you’ll bring
• Strong experience in retail format design, proposition design or customer experience innovation
• Strategic thinking combined with the ability to turn customer insight and market trends into commercially viable solutions, both now and for the future.
• Experience in test and learn environments, using data led pilots to drive continuous improvement and practical, commercially sound solutions.
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills, with a collaborative mindset and the confidence to challenge constructively, including at senior levels.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to simplify complex ideas and bring others on the journey
Why Co-op?
At Co-op, we’re owned by our members. And because we’re owned by you, we can do right by you. So when you join us, you’re not just taking a job, you’re joining a movement. We’re an organisation that puts people and communities first, and we’re powered by purpose. We want this to be a place where you can thrive, so you’ll also receive:
• 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
• Private healthcare
• 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
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 at Disability Confident Scheme - Co-op Colleagues and more about our commitments to diversity and inclusion at Diversity and Inclusion
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 up to 50 minutes. If you're a current Co-op colleague, this does not need to be completed.
