Retail Management Graduate B&Q Plc

Job description

Every year, we recruit exceptional people to join our Retail Management Graduate Programme.

If you’re one of those people, you’ll enjoy an excellent salary and benefits package, you’ll learn valuable skills and you’ll have the chance to develop your career quickly in a thriving FTSE 100 business. You’ll also spend your days helping customers to have better homes and better lives – and colleagues to enjoy their work more.  

The Graduate Programme lasts for two years.
You spend your first three months in store, working as a Customer Advisor, to get a hands-on insight into our customers, our service and the way our stores work. At the same time, you take part in a structured induction to introduce you to our business and start to develop your management skills.

When you’ve successfully completed this induction, you’ll take on your first management role, looking after part of the store and leading your own team. Over the following months, you’ll handle a variety of different management roles, to give you the fullest possible understanding of what’s involved in running a store. You’ll also have access to our portfolio of leadership development workshops, which aims to nurture and develop the future leaders of B&Q.

At the end of the programme, once you’ve shown you’re ready, you get your first appointment as a store manager.

As part of your Graduate Programme, you’ll have the chance to develop your skills in a variety of ways – some of them structured, some of them tailored to your individual needs.

You’ll take part in our comprehensive leadership and retail management training courses.

You’ll receive regular mentoring from an established manager and one-to-one support from a qualified coach. You’ll attend management conferences and meet senior leaders, to give you a first-hand insight into our strategy – and an opportunity to have your say. And you’ll meet key people from across the business to learn more about how we’re developing our business in key areas such as marketing, product development, community work and environmental responsibility. 

Person requirements

We’re looking for graduates who are bright, ambitious, outgoing and confident.

You’ll need at least a 2:2 degree, awarded within the last two years. Critically, you should already have some retail experience - and you should be prepared to relocate anywhere in the UK.

Most of all, we’re looking for people who are interested in people, because that’s what the job is really about: customers and colleagues.
It’s about how you relate to them, how you motivate them, how you can help them make their homes better or their work more enjoyable.

Not everyone can do it. If you think you can, we’d love to meet you.

Company information

Wherever you go in the world, home is the most important place.

B&Q is the No.1 home improvement retailer in the UK – with 360 stores and over 30,000 employees - and, as part of the Kingfisher Group, one of the biggest worldwide. But the numbers only tell a very small part of the story.

Our job is to help our customers have better homes and better lives. Giving them the inspiration, the materials and the practical know-how to turn their dreams into reality.

Qualification and experience requirements

Minimum of a 2.2 degree classification in any discipline, retail experience or similar essential.

Accepted degree subjects

Any