Senior Agronomist and Resillience Lead
M&S Careers · London
Our estimate of how close this job is to decisions about what protein a business sources, specifies, buys and serves. How we score
Why this role matters
How close this job is to real sourcing and menu decisions.
This is a genuine strategic seat inside M&S's food business, owning a category supply base and shaping sourcing, varietal and resilience strategy across Produce. But the scope described is horticultural: growers, crop varieties, agronomy, supply resilience for fruit and vegetables. Nothing in the advert touches meat, dairy, eggs, seafood or the plant-protein transition, so there's no direct lever here over standards in those categories. The value for a reader who cares about the wider food system is what the seat builds: category ownership experience, supplier and grower relationship management, and credibility operating at the intersection of technical expertise and commercial strategy inside a major retailer. These skills transfer directly to an animal-product or protein category role, where the same kind of standing would touch supplier sourcing standards and buying criteria more broadly. Treat this as a stepping stone into M&S's wider technical or category structure rather than a role that itself moves standards for other food categories.
Where this role can take you
What this job teaches you, and the jobs it can lead to.
What you'd build
- Category supply base ownership
- Grower and supplier partnership management
- Sourcing and varietal strategy development
- Supply chain resilience planning
- Cross-functional stakeholder influencing at a major retailer
Where it can lead
- Head of Agriculture
- Technical Director
- Category Manager
Roles like these can hold formal standing over sourcing and supplier standards for a wider category set, including whether animal-derived categories carry stronger requirements in their specifications.
About the role
M&S is hiring a Senior Agronomist and Resilience Lead within its Food team, based at the London Support Office (hybrid, three days a week in office). The role has two strands: leading the agronomy approach to resilience across the Produce category, and owning a category supply base. On resilience, the postholder will shape strategy, influence decision-making, help embed resilience principles across the supply chain, lead key technical workstreams, support category resilience plans, and represent Produce within wider resilience projects and industry discussions. On category ownership, they will develop trusted partnerships with suppliers and growers to deliver quality, consistency and availability, and drive sourcing, varietal and innovation plans supporting long-term category performance. The role works closely with commercial, technical and category teams to solve problems and deliver business objectives. Candidates should bring a degree-level technical qualification or significant relevant industry experience in the food sector, strong agronomy expertise combined with a sound understanding of horticultural production and grower relationships, the ability to influence and build credibility with a wide range of internal and external partners, and an understanding of customer needs, brand values and the commercial importance of sustainable supply. The role is full time and permanent, offering a competitive salary plus benefits including 20% colleague discount, competitive holiday allowance with the option to buy more, discretionary bonus schemes, pension and life assurance, tailored induction and training, an M&S Choices perks portal, family policies including parental, adoption and neonatal leave, 24/7 wellbeing support, and one paid volunteer day a year. The advert notes the role may close earlier than advertised due to high interest.
We added this one ourselves, from the employer's own advert.
Key terms to include in your CV and cover letter
What this employer is asking for, in their words. Applications are often screened by software looking for exact phrases, so if these describe your experience, use their wording.
- agronomy
- resilience strategy
- category supply base management
- sourcing strategy
- varietal planning
- grower relationship management
- supplier partnership development
- horticultural production
- innovation planning
- cross-functional collaboration
- commercial awareness
- stakeholder influencing
- category performance
- supply chain resilience
- quality and consistency management
How to position yourself
The language that works with hiring managers for this kind of job.
Position your experience in supplier and grower partnership management, sourcing resilience and category strategy as directly transferable to any protein or animal-product category. Emphasise the commercial and supply-continuity language (resilience, quality, consistency, availability) that this advert itself uses. Building fluency in food-company category structures and cross-functional working (commercial, technical, category teams) will help you move toward a category role with animal-product scope later.
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