Join a growth premium brand as its first Demand Planner. Drive forecast accuracy, support launches and connect commercial ambition with operations
Job Title: Demand Planner
Salary: circa £50,000 to £60,000
Location: Hybrid - happy with coming in every other week to HQ in the NE
About us
Founded over 22 years ago our client has grown into one of the UK's leading businesses in their field delivering premium products and services to professionals and consumers worldwide, with ethical sourcing and excellence at the heart of everything we do.
Recognised as one of the Sunday Times Best Places to Work in 2024, we foster a culture built on passion, creativity, and innovation.
Our team has more than doubled in size over the recent years, and with over £20+ million in revenue last year, we're experiencing exceptional global expansion with continued growth ahead.
About The Role
As our first ever Demand Planner, you will sit at the heart of the business, connecting commercial ambition with operational reality across both UK and international markets.
As we continue to expand into new territories, this role will provide a clear,
joined-up view of demand by channel and by country, ensuring stock decisions are informed, planned and scalable.
By improving forecast accuracy and forward visibility across multiple markets, the Demand Planner will enable better, faster decisions as the business
grows internationally.
Some of your key responsibilities will include:
Demand Forecast Ownership
- Develop, own and maintain a single, credible demand forecast across UK and
international territories, by channel and product range, that the business can trust.
- Build and manage a robust baseline forecast using historical sales data and trend analysis
- Incorporate promotions, campaigns, NPD launches, growth targets and wider
market activity into forward-looking demand plans
- Translate incomplete, conflicting and fast-moving commercial inputs into a clear, explainable view of demand
- Make assumptions explicit, track forecast accuracy, and continuously improve
forecast performance over time
- Apply appropriate forecasting techniques (e.g. baseline forecasting, uplift modelling, scenario planning) suitable to a fast-growth, multi-SKU environment.
Connecting Commercial Plans to Operational Reality
- Partner closely with Commercial, Marketing, NPD, Finance and Operations to ensure demand is visible before key decisions are made
- Challenge promotional activity and launch plans constructively using insight, data and scenario modelling
- Enable the business to pursue growth opportunities by clearly highlighting tradeoffs, risks and operational implications
- Ensure NPD forecasts are underpinned by realistic volume assumptions and
measurable demand signals
- Support margin understanding, where demand decisions impact profitability
Demand Leadership within S&OP
- Lead the demand side of the S&OP process, ensuring demand inputs are structured, forward-looking and decision-ready
- Define what high-quality demand planning input looks like and embed this into business routines
- Bring a joined-up demand view into forums to avoid reactive or backwards-looking
- Work in partnership with the Operations Director to improve cadence, clarity and effectiveness of S&OP discussions
- Help build a culture where decisions are made with foresight, not hindsight
Building a Demand Planning Capability
- Establish, embed and continuously improve the demand planning approach,
ensuring it remains fit for purpose as the business scales.
- Deliver clarity and consistency without over-engineering processes in a fast-growth environment
- Work effectively and build on imperfect systems and spreadsheets
- Define what "good" looks like today and shape how demand planning should evolve as the business scales
- Avoid unclear forecasting and create a scalable, repeatable planning capability over time
About You
We're ideally looking for someone with:
- Proven demand planning experience within a fast-growth, multi-sku, multi-channel environment.
- Strong UK market expertise, with some exposure to international territories.
- Ability to build and manage robust baseline forecast using sales data and trend analysis.
- Experience partnering with cross-functional teams such as NPD, Marketing and Commercial to provide credible forecasts for product launches, and constructively challenging promotional and launch plans.
- Ability to structure demand inputs into forward-looking, decision-ready outputs.
- An analytical, structured, commercially aware individual, with the ability to
comfortably influence and challenge.
Whilst the above describes the type of person we're looking for, we have great training and development capabilities, so even if you don't tick every point, we'd still love to hear from you.
What's On Offer
- Exciting career development opportunities within a fast-growing, award-winning business.
- 25 days' annual leave plus public bank holidays, giving you time to rest and recharge.
- 37.50 hours a week flexible 9-5 or 8-4 or 930-4.30
- Private health insurance through Vitality, supporting your long-term health and wellbeing.
- A healthcare cash plan to help with everyday healthcare costs.
- An enhanced pension scheme with salary sacrifice options, helping you plan for the future.
- A company-wide bonus scheme, recognising shared success. £2k annually
- Death in service cover providing four times your salary for peace of mind.
- Enhanced family leave and occupational sick pay, because looking after our team matters.
- Access to our Employee Assistance Programme, offering confidential wellbeing and mental health support whenever you need it.
- Paid volunteering days each year to support the causes that matter to you.