About the team

At Sainsbury’s, we’re deeply passionate about knowing our customers better than anyone else — and using that understanding to drive commercial success. Nectar, our loyalty scheme, helps us do exactly that, and Nectar360 (our consultancy business) shares this knowledge to benefit our brands, suppliers and partners. Within this, the Nectar Research team is a full-service, in-house research function that brings the voice of the customer directly to clients and stakeholders. With access to 8 million contactable customers, rich complementary customer knowledge, and a wide range of tools and expertise, we’re pushing beyond “traditional” research — innovating with new approaches and collaborating closely with Nectar360 subject matter experts and analysts to connect research insight with real-world behaviour.

More about the role

As a Senior Research Executive (Research Associate), you’ll partner closely with Nectar360 and colleagues across Insights to help deliver our research strategy. You’ll support the end-to-end delivery of research projects, from shaping the approach and designing studies, through questionnaire development and fieldwork management, to quality checks, analysis and reporting. You’ll translate data into clear, compelling insight — helping clients and stakeholders understand what customers think, feel and do, and what that means for their brand, product or proposition.

A key part of the role is supporting and helping manage our day-to-day trackers (for example brand and CSAT tracking). You’ll take the lead on reporting tracker outputs to key stakeholders, ensuring outputs are accurate, timely and actionable. You’ll also contribute to a broad range of research propositions — from media evaluation to purchase driver analysis — combining commercial impact (monetising research) with strategic value (deep, decision-shaping insight). Over time, your work will help teams act as trusted advisors and you’ll see the impact of your research influence decisions that land on shelves and in stores across the UK.

More about you

You’re curious about what makes people “tick” and motivated by turning research into decisions. You can choose the right methodology for the question, manage projects confidently, and bring structure to busy workloads. You’re comfortable working with stakeholders, explaining your thinking clearly, and adapting your style for different audiences — from research-savvy teams to time-poor senior stakeholders.

You bring strong analytical and numerical capability, with the attention to detail needed to maintain best-practice standards and quality outputs across multiple projects. You enjoy connecting dots across different sources (research, customer knowledge and behavioural data) to form a point of view and recommendation. Experience with Excel and PowerPoint is useful, and exposure to tools such as Qualtrics and/or Tableau is a bonus (but not essential). There are many ways to build these skills — while agency experience is beneficial, we welcome applicants from a range of backgrounds.

Essential criteria

Demonstrable experience using multiple research methodologies (e.g., quantitative and/or qualitative) and explaining the rationale for the chosen approach. Evidence of independently managing research projects end-to-end, including planning, timelines, stakeholder updates and delivery to deadline. Proven ability to design or critique questionnaires/discussion guides and apply quality checks that improve data reliability and insight confidence. Ability to synthesise insight from multiple information sources (e.g., survey findings plus commercial or customer data) into clear recommendations. Experience producing client-ready outputs (written or presentation) that communicate insight through structured storytelling and actionable conclusions.

#LI-DN1