Change Manager
Primark · Reading
Because we strive to put people first.
Culture, our way.
The Change Manager is responsible for planning and delivering end‑to‑end change for a programme or multiple projects within the Digital Transformation portfolio. The role supports successful adoption of new processes, systems, capabilities and behaviours that enable digitally enabled business outcomes, while aligning change activity to portfolio priorities, dependencies and governance requirements as appropriate. Working closely with business, technology and cross-functional stakeholders, the Change Manager designs, executes and embeds effective change interventions at programme and project level.
Programme & Project Change Planning
- Develop and manage integrated change plans for a programme or multiple projects, aligning activity to delivery milestones, dependencies, business readiness needs and relevant portfolio priorities.
- Conduct change impact assessments to identify and manage impacts across processes, technology, roles, capabilities, ways of working and operating models.
- Translate programme and project outcomes into practical business change activity, ensuring impacted teams understand what is changing, why it matters and how new ways of working will be adopted.
- Assess the impact of digital change on customer, colleague and operational experiences, ensuring change interventions support simple, consistent and sustainable adoption.
- Identify, manage and mitigate change-related risks, issues, dependencies and resistance throughout the programme or project lifecycle.
Business Readiness, Deployment & Adoption
- Contribute to business readiness activity for releases, deployments and phased rollouts, ensuring impacted teams have the knowledge, support, processes and capacity required to adopt the change.
- Support implementation, go-live, transition planning and hypercare, enabling a smooth move to business-as-usual operations.
- Define and track change readiness, adoption and engagement measures, using data and stakeholder insight to identify gaps, refine interventions and support benefits realisation.
- Establish and support change networks to accelerate adoption, gather feedback and embed sustainable ways of working.
- Capture lessons learned, adoption insights and continuous improvement opportunities from programme and project delivery, sharing relevant insight to support broader portfolio learning.
Stakeholder Engagement & Change Communications
- Map, manage and engage complex stakeholder groups across business, technology and operational teams, ensuring change impacts, risks and readiness requirements are understood and acted upon.
- Partner with business leaders, Portfolio team, Product, Technology, SMEs, Communications, Learning and People & Culture teams to deliver an integrated change experience.
- Design and deliver stakeholder engagement, communications and learning interventions tailored to the needs of impacted audiences and aligned to Portfolio communications approach.
- Drive stakeholder commitment and readiness by building awareness, understanding and engagement across impacted teams.
Governance, Insight & Continuous Improvement
- Provide clear change status reporting into programme governance and relevant portfolio forums, highlighting readiness, adoption, stakeholder engagement, risks, dependencies and decisions required.
- Contribute to programme governance forums, escalating risks, dependencies and decisions and ensuring appropriate alignment with portfolio governance where required.
Ensure programme and project level change activity aligns with enterprise change methodologies, governance standards and broader Digital Transformation objectives
Experience & Knowledge
- Degree or equivalent experience required
- 5+ years in Change Management or Transformation roles
- Experience delivering change across multiple projects or a medium-sized programme
- Hands‑on experience performing Change Impact Assessments, stakeholder analysis, communications, and training planning
- Strong understanding of change management frameworks and structured delivery environments (e.g., Agile, Waterfall)
- Experience supporting go‑live preparation, hypercare, and BAU transition
- Experience delivering change within customer-facing, operational or digitally enabled business environments.
- Experience assessing and managing change impacts across end-to-end business processes and cross-functional teams.
Nice to have:
- Exposure to retail transformation change
- Experience working across geographies or delivering change in multi‑market environments
- Experience working within a federated transformation model or matrix organisation
- Change Management certification preferred but not essential
Skills
- Strong planning and organisation skills, able to manage multiple priorities
- Strong facilitator, able to run workshops, briefings, and targeted engagement sessions
- Excellent communication skills - written, verbal, and visual
- Ability to analyse and simplify complexity and translate into actionable plans
- Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to work across diverse stakeholder groups
- Ability to track readiness, adoption, benefits, and insights
What You’ll Get
People are at the heart of what we do here, so it’s essential we provide you with the right environment to perform at your very best.
Let’s talk lifestyle: Healthcare, pension & potential bonus. 27 days of leave, plus bank holidays and if you want, you can buy 5 more. Because Primark is all about tailoring to you, we offer Tax Saver Tickets, fitness centre, and a subsidised cafeteria.
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.
#LI-Hybrid
REQ ID: JR-13592