Head of Buying

Job Description

What You’ll Do as Head of Buying 

In your role, you’ll collaborate with different people across a range of skillsets. Here’s a flavour of your day-to-day:   

• Lead the development of innovative, high‑quality, trend‑led product ranges at great prices by using customer insights, market data, and strong commercial judgement.
• Drive commercial performance by delivering sales, margin, profit, and stock efficiency through robust financial planning, market analysis, and cross‑departmental collaboration.
• Build and shape effective range strategies by developing strong supplier partnerships, ensuring compliance with Primark standards, and guiding teams in skilled negotiation.
• Lead, coach and develop high‑performing Buying teams, fostering creativity, accountability, succession planning and a strong leadership culture.
• Collaborate across Primark’s functions—Merchandising, Design, Sourcing, Ethical, Retail and others—to influence product decisions and deliver customer‑focused, commercially successful ranges.
• Represent Buying at senior leadership level, build strategic internal networks, and engage with stakeholders to share insights, drive local market adaptation, and champion the Buying vision.

Qualifications

What You’ll Bring   

Here at Primark, we want everyone to feel valued – so please bring your authentic self to work, of course with some other key experience and abilities for this role in particular:  

• Extensive Buying Expertise: 10+ years’ experience in Buying, including senior leadership responsibility, with a strong track record in delivering and executing successful Buying strategies.
• Leadership & High‑Performance Culture: Proven ability to lead, coach and develop high-performing teams, set ambitious targets, drive results, and foster a culture of creativity and innovation.
• Commercial & Strategic Capability: Skilled in prioritising complex workloads, analysing large data sets, managing multiple projects, and navigating fast-paced, deadline-driven environments.
• Exceptional Communication & Influence: Outstanding interpersonal, written and presentation skills, with the ability to build strong relationships and influence stakeholders at all levels, including Executive teams.
• Supplier & Negotiation Expertise: Highly skilled negotiator with significant experience managing suppliers, maintaining compliance standards, and building strong, strategic partnerships.
• Strong Personal Attributes: Operates with inegrity, sound judgment, emotional intelligence and professionalism; highly organised, detail‑focused, customer‑centric, and able to drive change while delivering results.

Additional Information

Does this sound like you? Great, because we can’t wait to see what you’ll bring. You’ll be supported within a team of equally capable people, celebrating who you are and aiding you reach your potential. At Primark, we’re excited about our future - and we’re excited to develop yours.   

About Primark  

At Primark, people matter. They’re the beating heart of our business and the reason we’ve grown from our first store in Dublin in 1969 to a £9bn+ turnover business and over 80,000 colleagues and over 440 stores in 17 countries today. Our values run through everything we do. In essence, we're Caring and always strive to put people first. We're also Dynamic, bravely pushing the boundaries to stay ahead. And finally, we succeed Together.   

If you need any reasonable adjustments or have an accessibility request, during your recruitment journey, such as extended time or breaks between online assessments, a sign language interpreter, mobility access, or assistive technology please contact your talent acquisition specialist.  

All offers of employment are subject to background checks, including right to work, reference education and for some roles criminal, and financial checks. If you have any concerns, please reach out to our talent acquisition team to discuss.  

Our fashion isn’t one-size-fits-all and neither is our culture. Primark promotes equal employment opportunity, we strive to create an inclusive workplace where people can be themselves, access opportunities and thrive together.